At a farmer’s market, Elaine Jenkins sorted flowers at Kempsville Florist, a shop that’s been in her family for 50 years. She was making boutonnieres and corsages for a local high school’s prom.
But every so often on this bright Saturday, someone would stop in and softly ask for a bouquet of flowers. She knew they were destined for a spot three miles down the road, where mourners had gathered at a makeshift memorial outside a municipal building.
Now, on the day after, residents of Virginia Beach faced the day with a mix of remorse and resilience.
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Church signs urged the city to pray for the victims. Shop windows bore the phrase #VBStrong, a hashtag that has become commonplace after our American massacres, with just the name of the places changed. At vigils spread across the sprawling city of 450,000, mourners sang “Amazing Grace” and held candles against the night’s gathering darkness.
In some ways, everything had changed. Virginia Beach would now bear the stigma of mass violence, like Parkland, like Las Vegas, like Orlando, like Thousand Oaks.
Source: Virginia Beach copes with life after another US massacre
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