It’s been almost two weeks since a gunman at a South Florida high school took the lives of 17 students and injured dozens others. The school, Stoneman Douglas, is about an hour north of Miami on the Florida turnpike.
Over the weekend, the Miami Heat returned from their road trip for their first home game since the shooting, and before tip-off against the visiting Grizzlies, they held a tribute at center court honoring the victims.
On Sunday, Dwyane Wade, who returned to the team at the trade deadline, received news that one of the victims, Joaquin Oliver, had been buried in one of his Heat jerseys. Wade was emotional learning of this on Twitter, and later expounded on his thoughts to the media following practice on Monday.
https://twitter.com/DwyaneWade/status/967809535648858112
Via Jordan McPherson and Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald:
“You really can’t put that in words,” Wade said after practice Monday. “You hurt for the family and if you’re able to get an opportunity to speak to them, you just try to hope that the time where he was alive, that you was able to bring some form of joy to his life and something memorable, a story that you guys can talk about. I don’t even know the word for it. Like I retweeted on Twitter, I said, ‘You’re going to make me cry.’ It’s emotional even thinking about that, that his parents felt that burying him in my jersey is something that he wanted. I take a lot of pride in what I’ve done in this state and what I’ve meant for the youth, so I appreciate that.”
Wade first heard the news via Twitter on Sunday after Oliver’s parents made an appearance on Al Punto, a Spanish-language talk show that airs on Univision.
