MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
This week marks 10 years since the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida. On June 12, 2016, a gunman opened fire and killed 49 people, injured 58. Pulse was a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community. That night, the club was hosting Latin dance night. Many of the victims were Hispanic. Central Florida Public Media's Joe Mario Pedersen reports grief is still raw a decade after the tragedy.
JOE MARIO PEDERSEN, BYLINE: Christine Leinonen will never forget the day her 32-year-old son, Christopher, and his boyfriend, Juan Ramon Guerrero, went to the Pulse nightclub. The two men were among the 49 people killed there that day.
CHRISTINE LEINONEN: I still think of him being a little one. He's just a little - my little son. He's my little baby. He's my little fourth grader laying on the floor of that club.
PEDERSEN: Leinonen remembers being in the hospital in Orlando with hundreds of other people all waiting for information about their loved ones. After 33 hours, the Orlando police confirmed that Christopher was one of the victims. It's been a long time since that day. Usually, she channels her grief into LGBTQ+ activism, but lately, Leinonen says the pain has been more powerful.
LEINONEN: Well, I'm a little sadder than most years. I don't know if 10 years is just piling on the - you know, the gravity of 10 years is just feeling heavier.
PEDERSEN: While that night 10 years ago created fear and pain, it also caused Orlando's marginalized communities to come together in the years that followed. Deborah Beidel is a psychologist with the University of Central Florida and an expert in PTSD.
DEBORAH BEIDEL: I've never seen a community come together in the way that Orlando came together and has stayed together - that this community's response has been one of love and understanding.
PEDERSEN: For one, Orlando has been welcoming to the LGBTQ+ community. And Fatima Sadaf Saied remembers going to a candlelight vigil 10 years ago with a group of Muslim women.
FATIMA SADAF SAIED: For a lot of us, we were like, we want to go, but how will that make people that are there feel if a bunch of Muslims showed up?
PEDERSEN: She says because the shooter claimed allegiance to the Islamic state, Central Florida Muslims were hesitant to come out and grieve with the community.
SAIED: There were people giving out flowers, and they turned to us and gave us hugs. And I think everybody needed that.
PEDERSEN: Saied says she's hosting a prayer gathering Friday at her home to honor the victims and survivors. Leinonen says she's never attended a memorial event because it's too painful.
LEINONEN: I just choose not to go, and maybe one day I will go. Maybe even this year, I'll go. Who knows? I could change my mind.
PEDERSEN: The city of Orlando is holding a remembrance ceremony on Friday evening at a church in downtown. The Pulse nightclub was torn down in March, and a memorial is going up in its place next year. For NPR News, I'm Joe Mario Pedersen in Orlando.
(SOUNDBITE OF STORMZY SONG, "FIRE + WATER") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.