I was paralyzed from the chest down by a school shooter at 15. I chose to forgive him.

Missy Jenkins Smith was shot when she was 15 at a school shooting and was left paralyzed from the chest down.

It was a cold morning on December 1st when I got to school after nearly a week off celebrating Thanksgiving. Before the day started, a group of us gathered in the lobby of the school to pray. I was particularly nervous about an exam I had to take in the first period.

As students filtered into the lobby, I recognized everyone. It was a small school, and I knew everyone’s first name. Even the boy who would very soon shoot me, Michael.

As we said “Amen,” I heard what I thought were firecrackers. Maybe it was a prank, I thought. My friend Nicole fell to the floor. Had she just been shot in the head? I couldn’t understand what was happening. I felt in a state of shock, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.

Guns weren’t even on my radar. It was a completely safe school — some would say the safest school of all the high schools in our area.

As I was trying to figure out what was going on, my entire body went numb as I heard a spray of that same sound. It must not have been firecrackers. It must have been a gun. There was a ringing sound inside my ears, and I dropped to the floor. The impact of the fall didn’t even hurt.

I was shot

My twin sister, Mandy, was right there with me, crawled to me, and said there had been a gun. She said Michael had been the shooter.

I knew Michael well enough to consider him a friend. We were in band together. I was a sophomore, and he was a freshman.

I learned later that Michael had dropped the gun, and when he did, the prayer group leader asked him what he was doing. He couldn’t give an answer. He put down the gun and asked the prayer leader to shoot him, which he wouldn’t do. Eventually, one of the staff took Michael to his office.

Later, Michael would go on to say he had been bullied and had voices in his head that told him to go on a rampage. He had used guns in a friend’s garage.

I couldn’t move

Lying on the ground, unable to move, I was still in shock. Mandy said to me: “Be strong. Don’t die.”

My algebra teacher came over to me and told me I wasn’t going to die. I told her I was paralyzed, but she told me I wasn’t, but I’m sure she knew I was and was just trying to keep me from going into further shock.

I was being told to keep my eyes open, but eventually, I couldn’t help close them.

When I woke, next to me, I could see my friend Jessica, who had been shot too. A teacher was holding her, saying over and over that Jessica wasn’t going to make it.

Jessica later died, as did Nicole and Kayce.

I was taken to the hospital, where I would stay for much longer than the others who were injured in the shooting.

I felt lonely

Lying flat on my back, I felt lonely at times. Everyone had returned to school, but I was alone for hours each day. I just wanted to go home.

News organizations came to the hospital to ask me what happened, and I remember it feeling like therapy.

When I finally returned to school, it was like what had happened had been part of a movie. Although I wasn’t diagnosed with PTSD, I know I had it. The sound of gunfire has always taken me back to that lobby. Our school offered students group counseling to work through the impact of the shooting, where we learned to cope with what had happened to us.

I was asked to speak to a group of students about what had happened. It was the first time I realized that speaking about it was a form of healing. I would go on to speak about the shooting for years to come.

Becoming paralyzed on that day could have led to a lifetime of anger and resentment. But on the day I was shot, I forgave Michael, making a choice to be happy. I couldn’t control what happened to me on that December day in 1997. But I could control my response to it. I talked to myself rather than listened to my emotions.

All my life, I’ve never been an angry person. Anger is exhausting for more. If I were to let what happened to me — to dwell on it and let it control me — I wouldn’t be a happy person. By choosing to forgive Michael, I chose happiness. I chose to forgive him for myself. It doesn’t mean that I’m always positive; I’m not. But it has given me back control over my own mindset, rather than being controlled by my anger at Michael.

Decades later, I’m starting to experience the frustration of my disability. My two children sometimes take care of me more than I take care of them. I have a lot of physical health issues from years of being in a wheelchair. I feel the aggravation, and then I choose to move on and remind myself that things could be worse.