"We called each other 'dawg' and there was a kind of a pack mentality. What it [my photo] means to me, my dog in my shadow. I’ll carry Alvin around with me. Live for him. I’m not just saying that just to get the picture. I really do do that. I want to make him proud"
(Aiden, age 24)
"What does it mean to man up? I could only think of one thing to symbolize that, just kind of turning off the faucets and not being so emotional, not that it is bad to be emotional, but just being strong. I should have taken a picture of a rock because that would have been good too. I don’t know, when you think of manning up, for me, I'm sure most people too, just don't cry. So you just turn off the faucet."
(Damien, age 22))
“After E. died, I really got into doing my painting. I think I’ve got pretty good at it. You can see in this picture a symbol of all the friends I’ve had that have been killed in the past two years. I post my art pictures on Facebook and anyone can see it.”
(Amir, age 20)
“I just felt like there were all of these cracks in me. Like, I would not be the same person. That’s why I took a picture of this concrete..”
(Markus, age 25)
” Missing is a feeling I felt because—I wanted to say I felt lost the whole day. I was just in disbelief, you know what I mean? I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know how to talk to people about it. It was just so unreal that it was sort of something that I had to get through on my own.”
(Nathan)
“I didn’t really feel like anyone would totally understand what I was going through, so I kind of dealt with it on my own. It wasn’t a bad thing. I just found somewhere nice and remembered him.”
(Dylan)