This is my portrait of Nathan Berhow, one of the 3 people who died in the school shooting tragedy on November 14th, 2019 at Saugus High School, a place that’s been like another home to me and so many other people. I made this to show my respect to him, his family, my high school, and our community. He was also sadly the person that caused the shooting. I made this for his mom, who also lost a child. She didn’t just find out that day that her child died as well, she found out that her child also killed two and injured three others. The child she loves. And then killed himself in the process. This was a complete surprise. Anyone who knew Nathan knew he was a kind, smart, responsible, and quiet individual. I didn’t know him personally, but I have a lot of close friends that were close with him. I did this to really try and help comfort his mom, who really was lacking in the support she was receiving from the community. I have friends that are very close with his mom, Mami so I knew just how hard she was taking it and the guilt, sadness, and confession she was feeling. They were very worried about her. I wanted to show her that someone did not hate her, someone wanted to show her that: 1) this was not her fault, and 2) that this came at as much of a surprise and brought as much confusion, because this was not the Nathan people knew, to us as to her. I wanted to help her remember the son she had before those 16 seconds.
I was also given the opportunity to go give this to his mother at his funeral. She gave me the most bittersweet and long hug I’ve ever experienced, and I did not even know her. I also got to meet his dog because my friends that are close with Nathan’s family were taking care of the dog while Mami was grieving, she was so sweet.
This painting also allowed me to cope and heal from the tragedy. I was there that day, in the choir room, about thirty feet from where the Nathan  shot three and killed himself and Gracie and Dominic. I was lucky enough to have myself and the people I am close to, come out physically unharmed. This was a very terrifying day and it rocked the whole community to our cores, painting these pictures of the victims and the Nathan, really helped my community and I start to heal.

This painting was painted on a wooden board, I sketched it out first, and then painted it with acrylic paint. I got the reference photo from his mom’s social media.