I was just a little girl when my dad passed — young enough that the adults didn’t tell me much about what had happened but old enough to notice his absence. My grandparents stepped in to fill the space he left behind, doing everything they could to support my mom and give me a steady childhood. But even surrounded by their love, I still had to learn how to navigate a loss I couldn’t put into words. It wasn’t until much later in life that I learned the truth of what had happened — that my dad had shot and killed himself after fighting a long battle with mental health. His death fell on our family like a stone into water, sending ripples of grief through generations that have continued to reverberate all these years later. Losing my dad shaped me. Nothing has forced me to be resilient more than being a survivor of gun violence. But some days, I don’t want to be resilient — stories like my family’s are all too common, and survivors like me are forced to shoulder the the burden of our country’s gun violence crisis. We don’t have to accept this.