(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Keely Roberts knows July 4 is going to be a hard day, but she wants to make sure her twins — now 9-year-olds — Cooper and Luke see positive things in the world.
“I want them to understand that part of surviving is about owning the good in them and seeing the good in others,” she said.
Roberts said she wants to ensure that Luke and Cooper, who was paralyzed from the waist down in the parade shooting last year, understand that they control their happiness — not someone else.
In a video update shared to the family’s GoFundMe, she didn’t share whether the family will be attending the remembrance ceremony, community walk or other events that the City of Highland Park has scheduled for July 4.
Roberts wrote on the GoFundMe that, as the one-year mark from the shooting neared, she felt “overwhelming grief for what has been taken from my children.”
“Earlier [in June], Cooper and Luke finished third grade,” she wrote. “This year was not about academic prowess; it was about honoring that both of our boys were alive to even be third graders.”
Roberts added that despite all of the challenges and loss Cooper has faced since the shooting, their family has been “astonished by his resilience and hope.”
“We are figuring out new ways to participate in the world,” she wrote.
That process has included changes at home. Roberts wrote that the family’s house — a nearly 100-year-old, two-story residence — is inaccessible, with lots of stairs, narrow hallways and kitchen counters that are too high. As a result, the Roberts family is working to build a fully accessible home for Cooper.
In the meantime, Roberts said she hopes that whatever the family decides to do on Tuesday will help the boys be joyful and happy.
“There’s still a lot to celebrate in them,” she said. “This isn’t about the destruction of our lives. It’s about the starting of a new chapter.”
The Roberts' GoFundMe, which will help cover costs for a fully accessible home, can be found here.
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