--- description: Mitchell Dworet and Melissa Willey have never met and don’t have much in common. Dworet, whom everyone calls Mitch, is an outgoing real estate agent... title: ‘The World Moves On And You Don’t.’ Parents Who Lost Children in School Shootings Find Comfort in a Group No One Wants to Join image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5328d5574ef98fe8/6989401b929fad8d24bf22f5/school-shooting-parents-01.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [U.S.](/section/us/) ## U.S. Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # ‘The World Moves On And You Don’t.’ Parents Who Lost Children in School Shootings Find Comfort in a Group No One Wants to Join (29 Nov 2018) by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Nov 29, 2018 10:24 AM CUT  Seven parents of seven dead students. From left: Pamela Wright- Young, Melissa Willey, Andrew Pollack, Darshell Scott, Tom Mauser, Nicole Hockley and Darrell Scott Seven parents of seven dead students. From left: Pamela Wright- Young, Melissa Willey, Andrew Pollack, Darshell Scott, Tom Mauser, Nicole Hockley and Darrell ScottPhotographs by Adam Ferguson for TIME by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Nov 29, 2018 10:24 AM CUT Mitchell Dworet and Melissa Willey have never met and don’t have much in common. Dworet, whom everyone calls Mitch, is an outgoing real estate agent from a busy part of Florida; Willey is a reserved stay-at-home mother of nine from a small town in southern Maryland. But one thing unites them: both had kids on a high school swim team, and now both of those kids are dead. Dworet’s 17-year-old son Nicholas was killed during the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in February. Soon after, some parents of other children who had been victims of gun violence contacted Dworet, offering him support, guidance and understanding. A month later, 1,000 miles north in Maryland, Willey’s daughter Jaelynn, 16, was shot to death by a fellow student at Great Mills High School. When Dworet heard about it, he contacted Willey on Facebook. “I felt like I should reach out,” he says. “I wanted to pay it forward.” _Read the full cover story_ [_here_](http://time.com/longform/school-shooting-parents/ "undefined")_._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5466441/the-world-moves-on-and-you-dont/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5466441/the-world-moves-on-and-you-dont/"},"headline":"‘The World Moves On And You Don’t.’ Parents Who Lost Children in School Shootings Find Comfort in a Group No One Wants to Join (29 Nov 2018)","datePublished":"2018-11-29T10:24:08.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-26T20:12:16.828Z","description":"Mitchell Dworet and Melissa Willey have never met and don’t have much in common. Dworet, whom everyone calls Mitch, is an outgoing real estate agent...","url":"https://time.com/5466441/the-world-moves-on-and-you-dont/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5328d5574ef98fe8/6989401b929fad8d24bf22f5/school-shooting-parents-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5328d5574ef98fe8/6989401b929fad8d24bf22f5/school-shooting-parents-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"20180831_SaddestClub_FullGroup_037_B.JPG","caption":"Seven parents of seven dead students. From left: Pamela Wright- Young, Melissa Willey, Andrew Pollack, Darshell Scott, Tom Mauser, Nicole Hockley and Darrell Scott","creditText":"Photographs by Adam Ferguson for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5466441/the-world-moves-on-and-you-dont/","name":"‘The World Moves On And You Don’t.’ Parents Who Lost Children in School Shootings Find Comfort in a Group No One Wants to Join (29 Nov 2018)"}}]}] ```