Highland Park shooting victim Cooper Roberts RETURNS HOME to a 'cruel and unfair road ahead'
ZION, ILLINOIS: Cooper Roberts, 8, has returned home more than two months after being shot during the Highland Park parade massacre. The Roberts family reported in an update to a GoFundMe page they had set up, "We are at a total loss of words to express how filled with gratitude, love, and wholeness we now feel given that we are able to finally have Cooper back at home. There was a time, not all that long ago, where we were desperately and feverishly praying just for Cooper to live. To be able to have Cooper home and our family all reunited together again is such an amazing blessing.”
Cooper was at Highland Park, Illinois, celebrating the Fourth of July with his family when a shooter opened fire on the crowd. Cooper was hit in the abdomen. The shooting left seven individuals dead and 48 more wounded. Cooper's gunshot wound left him immobile, with fractured vertebrae and a severe spinal cord injury. The 8-year-old underwent multiple surgeries and weeks of rehabilitation before his homecoming.
Cooper’s parents Jason and Keely Roberts spoke of their son's ‘heartbreakingly cruel and unfair road ahead.’ They wrote, “The transition to having Cooper’s extensive medical needs being addressed at home vs. at the hospital or rehabilitation clinic is a gigantic learning curve for all of us. And, now that he is home, Cooper has to deal on a daily basis with the sadness and grief of recognizing all the things he’s lost — all that he used to be able to do at his house, in his community, that he cannot do anymore.”
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“Even much of his own home which he cannot access. For all the love that he has come back to, there are so many painful reminders of what he has lost. There is no word that we know of that adequately describes the level of pain you feel or that Cooper feels when he sees the bike he can no longer ride or his old soccer jersey...heartbreaking, agonizing, despair — there is just not a painful enough description," the statement added.
They also said that Cooper will have to go through the process of adjusting to a new normal. They wrote, “It is filled with a lot of new challenges and continued grief for what we have lost. There is a lot of trying to figure out how to pick up the broken pieces of a life we knew and put it back together but without the instructions. Even our home, which we all have loved, simply cannot work for us anymore with Cooper and a wheelchair and many other needs.”
In the conclusion, Cooper’s parents stressed that their son's desire and spirit continue to propel him ahead despite the unfamiliar terrain. “Since the very start, Cooper has inspired us. He is brave and kind. He is tough as nails yet incredibly tender-hearted. He cares more about others' well-being than his own. He loves the world…and it is because of the love and prayers you have all sent and continue to send to him that we believe he continues on a path of healing. Please continue to pray for our sweet little boy…we know he will show the entire world that love really does win in the end,” their statement said.
The official GoFundMe campaign that was created to support Cooper’s family raised over $2 million dollars from 30.6K donations so far.