Remembering a friend

As the shooter walked onto a stage in a classroom Feb. 14 at Northern Illinois University, Dan Parmenter grabbed his girlfriend, threw her to the floor and began praying out loud. He saved her life.\nOn that day, 27-year-old former student Steven Kazmierczak killed five people, including himself, and wounded 16 more. Parmenter, a sophomore, was shot five times and was later pronounced dead. His girlfriend was shot only once.\n“I think it was more frustration that we felt,” said IU sophomore Alex LoCicero, one of Dan’s best friends since elementary school. “Hatred and anger wasn’t beneficial. (Dan) sacrificed his life for his girlfriend. A lot of us made peace with that. He didn’t die in vain.”\nWhen LoCicero heard of the shooting through TV news reports and word-of-mouth, he and his friends tried to contact Parmenter, but they never received a response.\n“I walked into Willkie and saw it on the news,” LoCicero said. “I knew several people there. We tried calling and Facebooking our friends. When we hadn’t heard anything, I knew something wasn’t right. Several hours later, you’d figure you’d heard something.”\nParmenter’s friends all across the country experienced the same problem when it came to finding information on his situation.\n“I saw something on Facebook that said, ‘We’re praying for you, Dan,’” said Western Illinois University sophomore Thomas Seida, a childhood friend of Parmenter. “We had no information on whether he was dead or alive.”\nIt was Valentine’s Day, and Parmenter had called his parents and older sister in the morning to tell them he loved them. He had also bought his girlfriend a necklace, but he never had the opportunity to give it to her. His older sister found the necklace after his death and later gave it to his girlfriend.\n“It was a small gift compared to giving a second chance of life,” LoCicero said. “It was the most selfless event that could have been done on that day. There’s no better way to define love than giving someone a second chance to live.”\nOnce the news of Parmenter’s death spread, Parmenter’s mother called his six best friends from childhood and asked them to be pallbearers at his funeral. The men had known Parmenter almost their entire lives, but they were separated after high school, each attending a different college.\n“We’ve all known each other since kindergarten,” LoCicero said. “We all went to middle school and high school together. He had his frat brothers, but we were just as much his brothers because we grew up with him.”\nParmenter’s wake was held the following Monday. There was a four-hour wait just to see the open casket and talk with his family. The wake was scheduled for 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., but it lasted later than midnight, LoCicero said. LoCicero and his friends told stories about Parmenter, trying to keep his memory alive.\n“During the wake, it was more just expressing what we were feeling and getting it off our backs,” Seida said. “People had videos on their phone that made you laugh and made you want to smile. One friend just said to write down every good memory and the memories will always be there.”\nAt the funeral on Tuesday Feb. 19, the six men took their places as pallbearers.\n“Once it started and we had to walk the casket to the altar, it was very surreal,” LoCicero said. “We sat up front with his family. It was hard not to break down.”\nAt the end of the service, Parmenter’s Phi Kappa Alpha fraternity brothers lined the walkway out to the hearse, and the casket was walked through them as they paid their respects.\n“You really had to regain your composure,” Sieda said. “Putting him in the hearse was an honor, but very difficult.”\nA small burial was held Wed. Feb. 20, for family and close friends. LoCicero and the others began making their way home to their respective universities – Pennsylvania State, Western Illinois, DePauw, Indiana and others.\n“The hardest part was coming back here on Wednesday,” LoCicero said. “At home we had friends. It’s harder at school. It’s harder to tell those stories to people who didn’t know him.”\nAt Western Illinois, Seida saw a lot of support, too, because it is so close to Northern Illinois University.\n“Immediately you hear there’s something at Northern Illinois, you don’t believe it because it’s so close,” Seida said. “Everyone here knows people there.”\nWhen the men came home, the six of them each wrote a letter to send to their school publications in order to share Parmenter’s story.\n“We may not be able to change things, but maybe we can make people aware,” LoCicero said. “He was in the front row of class. It could have very easily been at IU, at any campus.”