MINNEAPOLIS — Healing is often done in stages, and a girl wounded in the Annunciation School mass shooting is taking another step forward, returning to school with friends and teachers just over a month after the life-changing event. 

A post on her GoFundMe page from Sept. 30 says Lydia Kaiser is back at school, and that the days have been “filled up with love and lifting.” The 12-year-old was shot while attempting to protect a younger student, and had to have a piece of skull surgically removed to make room for swelling in her brain. 

“She will need ongoing care for the foreseeable future, but she remains a brave little fighter, and she is feeling stronger every day,” reads the GoFundMe update. “She has to take a break from her favorite sports, volleyball and basketball, and that is hard for her, but she will be cheering her teammates on all the way.” 

The post again referenced the damage done – both physical and psychological – by the Aug. 27 mass shooting, but emphasized that Lydia, students and staff, and all Annunciation families are committed to shining bright. 

“The darkest nights produce the brightest stars,” the post reads. “Go shine bright, Lydia!”

Lydia’s father, Harry, is a gym teacher at Annunciation School. Harry Kaiser and his wife, Leah, met with Vice President JD Vance in the wake of the shooting and urged him and the Trump administration to take action against the rising tide of gun violence. 

“Will you please promise to pursue, despite powerful lobbies, some commonsense bipartisan legislation as a starting point, so we can come out of our corners and find the values that we share so that this time some progress is made?” Harry said, reading a note he and Leah wrote to the Vice President. “Thoughts and prayers haven’t been enough; many policies have been dismissed without even being studied or tried. It’s so complicated. I don’t claim to have the answers, but we have to commit to looking.”

The Annunciation mass shooting killed two students and wounded more than 20 other people