A Parkland father returned to the scene where his son died. He left with a bullet-torn poem and even more pain

Family handout/The Independent

As he prepared to write a eulogy for his 14-year-old son Alex’s funeral, Max Schachter found strength in a crumpled-up piece of paper the teen had discarded in the trash.

“Life is like a roller coaster/It has some ups and downs/Sometimes you can take it slow or very fast/It may be hard to breathe at times/But you have to push yourself and keep going,” Alex wrote in his poem Life is Like a Rollercoaster.