“On one hand, I was lucky,” Brandon Wolf tells a packed gym of teenagers. “I had survived the worst mass shooting in modern US history by hiding [next to] a urinal. On the other hand, I was just feet from where my friends kissed each other goodbye.”
A survivor of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, Brandon Wolf is delivering a motivational speech to students at Canby High School (CHS), where he and I became close friends roughly 13 years ago. This past February, two CHS students took their lives within a week of each other. The school continues to grieve, and as part of his presentation, Brandon shares how he found purpose in the wake of a massive tragedy.
As a former CHS student body president—and now a Pulse survivor and sometimes gun control advocate—Brandon agreed to fly to his home state of Oregon to speak at the assembly, offer students support, and talk about his newest work, promoting LGBTQ equality and ending gun violence. It’s his first visit to Oregon in eight years.
“Wow, a lot has changed since the last time I was here,” Brandon says to the students, “and I’m not just talking about the 25 pounds I’ve gained or my obvious need for Botox.”
A couple dozen uncomfortable chuckles.
“I grew up here in Canby, just over on Birch Street,” he says. “But there was a lot about it that never quite felt like home. When I graduated in 2006, there were 1,800 students here… only 11 of us were Black. In many ways, not seeing people like me meant growing up not knowing who I was. Or where I fit in. People made fun of me for the way I looked, the way I talked, the way I walked. I spent my entire childhood being told I wasn’t quite Black enough. Not quite white enough. And obviously not straight enough.”
More chuckles.
Even before Brandon talks about the events at Pulse on June 12, 2016, you could hear a pin drop in the massive gym of ordinarily restless teenagers. They were locked in.
