Orlando: As Orlando continues to grieve over the worst mass shooting in US history that took place at the gay nightclub Pulse on June 12, a gesture by a man from Chicago has given the grief-stricken people some reason to smile along with some sense of comfort.
Greg Zanis, 65, a self-employed carpenter who covered a distance of 1,200 miles to Orlando to set up a memorial in front of the Orlando regional medical centre. He has brought along with him 49 hand-made wooden crosses that he made in his garage workshop using donated lumber.
Each white cross, three feet tall, bears the name of the 49 deceased people who were murdered at the nightclub. The cross also has a large wooden heart placed right at the middle. Zanis also brought markers for people who wanted to leave messages and hopes that the crosses will receive enough love and tributes in a week to help the deceased rest in peace.
It took Zanis 17 hours to cover the distance between Chicago and the Orlando hospital.
Remarkably, this is not the first time Zanis has done something like this; his crosses have travelled to tragedy-hit towns many a times before this.
'When you see all these lined up, it will be like "Oh my God,'" he told Yahoo! 'They will see the severity of what happened.'
Zainis delivered 12 crosses in Auroa, after a mass shooting at the midnight showing of the Dark Knight Roses; 26 in Newtown to memorialize the children and staff who were massacred on a winter morning at Sandy Hook Elementary School; for the students of Columbine and the victims of the Boston Marathon Bombing.
No tragedy is too small for Greg Zanis as he has made crosses for every one of them, as well as for victims of fatal domestic disputes, gang shootings, bombings and even plane crashes.
{img-78611}
But Orlando was by far the biggest memorial Zanis has ever made.
"I'm doing this for their families," Zanis said during a stop in Nashville. "This individualizes it."
'My message today is love your brother, love your neighbour,' he said as he unloaded the crosses.
'Don't judge them.'
