‘This kind of loss stops everything’: Loyola Community Grieves Sheridan Gorman at Vigil

When Jessica Gorman received a phone call telling her that her daughter, a first-year student, had been shot and killed early March 19, she said she’d expected to feel Sheridan Gorman’s presence. But she couldn’t — not on the phone, not on the plane from Yorktown, N.Y. to Chicago and not on the drive from O’Hare International Airport to the Lake Shore Campus.

But when she arrived at the vigil for her slain daughter in Madonna della Strada Chapel — which started 15 minutes late to wait for Jessica and her husband Thomas Gorman to arrive from the airport — she finally understood why she couldn’t feel Sheridan’s presence. 

“She was still here with you,” Jessica Gorman said, speaking to the Loyola students who filled every seat in the chapel, overflowing into aisles and sitting on the floor in front of the altar, collectively grieving the 18-year-old. 

Sheridan was fatally shot at about 1 a.m. March 19 at Tobey Prinz Beach, just North of the Lake Shore Campus, while walking with a group of her friends. The suspect is still at large, but authorities said they don’t perceive there being an active threat to the Loyola community, The Phoenix reported.

Described as an “absolute delight,” Sheridan was compassionate, selfless, joyous, “over-the-top generous” and funny with “spot on delivery,” according to speakers Laura Swanson and Kim Johnson, Sheridan’s mentors at Cru, a Christian Campus Ministry group on campus.

The vigil, which began at about 7:15 p.m. upon the arrival of Sheridan’s family, started with a prayer of solidarity from Loyola President Mark C. Reed and included choir music and readings from Sophia Scelzo and Kat Butcher. Fr. Thomas Neitzke, S.J., and Fr. Michael Rossmann, S.J., led the service. 

The students, united through loss and small pink bows pinned to their shirts, attended the service in varying degrees of formality — some sporting suits and ties while others arrived in hoodies and dark colored jeans, still carrying their backpacks from an otherwise typical Thursday of classes. 

Sheridan’s friends and family, who sat in the first few rows of the chapel, held each other in both tears and smiles throughout the service.  

“This kind of loss stops everything,” Neitzke said in his sermon, where he shared snippets from an essay Sheridan wrote for a class in the fall semester. 

Neitzke said it was clear through Sheridan’s writing she was “not passing through this life distracted,” and he said she speaks now to Loyola’s community with radiant hope, allowing faith and hope to persist in the presence of tragedy. He shared Sheridan’s belief in the “eternal future ahead of us” with the church.

“We should not only invest in ourselves, but we need to invest in the souls of other people,” Sheridan wrote in a paper that Neitzke read portions of at the vigil. 

Like she intended, Sheridan constantly invested in the souls of others, according to Cru at Loyola Director Johnson, who said she made the world feel warmer with just her presence. Johnson said she was first introduced to the student when she led Sheridan’s small group freshman Bible study.

“I still don’t have the words,” Johnson said at the vigil. “Because how do you sum up a life like Sheridan’s in just a few moments?”

Johnson said Sheridan was always the first person — and the last — to give her a hug at Cru events. She said Sheridan had a knack for really being able to see people, a quality Sheridan’s mom Jessica Gorman thanked Johnson for noticing when she spoke later in the evening. 

Another member of Cru, Swanson, said Sheridan was the first freshman she met this school year. When they were introduced, Sheridan told Swanson she had two goals for her time at Loyola: to find her people and to explore her faith. 

After all the speakers, friends of Sheridan’s and members of the Loyola administration helped spread light to candles held by attendees throughout the church. As the flames danced, the chapel filled with prayer and the timeless tune of “Amazing Grace.” 

Attendees shared signs of peace and comfort before Sheridan’s mom Jessica Gorman spoke through emotion in front of the church while still managing to elicit tenacious laughs from the crowd.

Jessica Gorman said Sheridan loved Loyola deeply, evident by the “cheesy coats” dawned in jewels and Loyola paraphernalia Sheridan asked her mom to make for her and her friends to wear to basketball games. Jessica Gorman asked Sheridan’s friends, who wore the jackets to the vigil, to stand up, so everyone could see. They did so proudly.

Sheridan was only able to wear the bedazzled jean jacket to one game before she died, her mom said, explaining that Sheridan sent her a photo from the game because Lu Wolf came right up to her. Jessica Gorman said this is now her favorite photo of her daughter and held a printed copy she had in her jacket pocket up for the crowded chapel to see. 

Sheridan’s mom told the crowd the murder of her daughter signified a betrayal of trust for her family, and she called for accountability and answers. She said she and her family need and deserve justice.

“To Chicago, do better,” she said. “Be better. We trusted you.”

Jessica Gorman said she found consolation knowing no one else was hurt at the shooting because she knew it would’ve broken Sheridan had she known her friends or peers had been injured. 

In attendance, Alderwoman Maria Hadden (49th) said the type of impact a death like Sheridan’s can have in the greater Rogers Park community is lasting. She pointed to the sheer number of people who attended the vigil to show how devastating the loss was. 

“Loyola is part of our community,” Hadden said, condemning the violence and showing support for the school. 

Loyola Students Demand Action (SDA), an anti-gun violence group, also attended the vigil wearing their organization’s red shirts to signify they were available to talk with anyone who needed a safe place to grieve, according to SDA member Fiona Mazeikis, a second-year criminal justice and Spanish major. 

Mazeikis said there’s a serious gun violence problem in the United States, and the problem wasn’t fixed soon enough for the result to be different for Sheridan. 

“There’s more we can do to protect our communities, so it’s important to give yourself time to grieve,” Mazeikis said. “But you can’t let grief stop you from taking action and making change.”

When the vigil concluded, Sheridan’s family and friends proceeded out of the church and shared moments of grief and consolation on the lakefront walkway outside. 

“There is a much bigger future ahead of us,” Sheridan wrote in her essay. “We have an eternal future ahead of us.”