2 Months After Orlando Massacre, Survivors, Victims' Families Coping With Loss, Trying to Move Forward

— -- Christine Leinonen sat on her couch with a stack of old photographs on her lap, and pointed out one of her son smiling from when they had gone out to dinner for his birthday.

“He was one of the good ones,” she said. “You would have loved him as your neighbor, as your son, as your cousin ... you would have loved him because he is what we want to be.”

For Leinonen, life will never be the same. Her son, 32-year-old Christopher Leinonen, was one of the 49 people killed in the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando in June.

It’s been two months since his death, and his mother is trying to pick up the pieces. Her living room is filled with belongings from his apartment -- his bed frame, his TV, his bookshelf, his clothes.

“This is unfortunately what you’re left with when your son suddenly gets massacred,” Leinonen said. “You bring his furniture into your space ... I just really shoved everything wherever I could find a space.”

Leinonen said she doesn’t want to part with her son’s things.

“This is all I have,” she said. “This is what he loved.”

Her nightmare began on June 12, when Christopher, her only son, and his boyfriend Juan Guerrero were gunned down in what became the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.

The lone gunman managed to wound victims with more than 200 bullets -- one last victim still clings to life in the hospital. Leinonen and many others learned about the gruesome details of their loved ones’ murder after the coroner released the autopsy results last week.

“I need to know,” Leinonen said. “Even though it haunts me that he was slaughtered and his entire torso was torn up with seven to nine bullets.”

And 62 days later, she says it’s just as easy to legally purchase an assault rifle in the state of Florida.

Leinonen has focused her attention on advocating for a banning high-capacity assault rifles, the type of weapon that was used to kill her son.

“No one needs a high-powered weapon. No one,” she said. “So many shots, so quickly, so easily, and that he legally bought that high-powered weapon just one week before the shooting.”

Not just the physical but the emotional scars are now fueling the nation’s outrage over the massacre and reigniting the gun control debate. But despite a passionate U.S. Senate filibuster and that dramatic sit-in on the House floor led by Congressman John Lewis, D-Georgia, every single piece of legislation has since failed.

“We don’t know who is going to be the next mass shooter,” Leinonen said. “All we can do is try to protect ourselves from this type of weapon so that when they do get their fuse lit, that maybe we can overcome them relatively quickly.”

Leinonen echoed that sentiment in front of thousands at the Democratic National Convention, supported by two of her son’s friends. She has been also been campaigning with pro-gun control Senate hopeful Patrick Murphy, working to unseat Republican Marco Rubio in her home state of Florida, which has become a battleground in every sense of the word.

For the many survivors of the Pulse rampage, the wounds only seem to deepen. Tiara Parker, a 21-year-old from Philadelphia, was shot that night after what started out as a night of dancing with her cousin and close friend.

For three torturous hours, the trio was trapped in the nightclub bathroom, and even came face-to-face with the killer. She and her friend Patience Carter managed to survive the horror, but her cousin Akyra Murray, who had just graduated high school, died.

Even now, Parker said the pain from that tragic night haunts her.

“I feel like my lungs are caving in,” she said. “Like there’s no light anywhere and I’m just spinning in one circle. That’s how I feel.”

But even from the depths of despair, Parker has risen to inspire others. Last week, she appeared on stage with Jessica Alba as an honoree for the Teen Choice “Courage” award.

But even as she’s recognized for her heroism, the gun violence continues. Two weeks ago, another one of Parker’s cousins, 24-year-old Dante Williams, was killed by an unknown gunman.

“I want to be able to go over and say 'hey cuz' and be able to hug 'em,” she said. “I don’t think anybody understands, they were my close-knit -- they meant everything to me. I seen Dante two days before he was killed. I had my cousin [Murray] in my lap as she was breathing, trying to take her last breath.”

“I try to stay focused, and when I feel like stopping, I hear them,” she added.

Parker says she has sleepless nights and recurring nightmares, experiencing the classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress. She said she’s still hoping to find the right treatment.

As for Christine Leinonen’s healing process, she said what has been the most cathartic for her is being around her son’s friends.

“I loved them all before anyway,” she said. “I was always stealing his friends on Facebook. He’d say, ‘Mom, stop stealing my friends.’ I’d say, ‘I won’t say anything creepy. I promise.’”

One of her son’s friends Brandon and his boyfriend Eric were out with Christopher Leinonen and Juan Guerrero that night at Pulse but managed to run out when the shooting began.

“What goes through my mind is not that I escaped death, not that I was lucky in any way, but that two of my very best friends did not escape death,” Brandon said. “I never want this to happen to anybody else.”

Which is why Brandon and some of Christopher’s other friends created The Dru Project in honor of their friend who fought for gay-straight alliances to help LGBT youth.

“Gay people really struggle to survive every day,’ Brandon said. “For someone to come into our home, where we feel safe, where we love each other, where we protect each other, and harm us like this, and that’s not a rallying call, then I don’t know what else we need.”

Leinonen planted a eucalyptus tree with a rainbow ribbon tied around it in her son’s honor.

“I’m not the same,” she said. “On June 12, I became a different Christine, one that’s going to be more powerful in some ways, but so lost and empty in so many ways.”