Afifa Charles has endured unspeakable grief since her 14-year-old daughter Shyanne was killed on Danzig St. during Toronto’s worst mass shooting almost five years ago.

But on Thursday her tears were of joy and pride as Charles prepared for her son Devante, the second of her four children and Shyanne’s younger brother, to walk across the stage as a high school graduate.

“I’m overwhelmed — everything he went through and he’s graduating on time,” she said. “I want other kids to know it doesn’t matter where you grew up, what you’ve faced in life. If you set your mind to it, it can be done, and he did it.”

Graduation isn’t just new to Devante, 17, one of 131 students to receive his diploma Thursday evening. The ceremony at Georges Vanier Secondary School is also the first one his mother has ever attended and a landmark event for several generations of their family.

“I told him, you accomplished something I didn’t,” says Charles, who dropped out in Grade 10 when she was pregnant. “He’s the first in our family to get his high school diploma on time and walk across the stage.”

Devante listens quietly as his mother bristles with excitement. But he doesn’t miss a beat.

“I think that deserves a car,” he says with a straight face.

But asked seriously about how he feels to be a graduate, he flashes a smile.

“Super proud.”

Teachers and a crew of 17 family members were eager to celebrate Devante’s achievement in the wake of a tragedy that devastated a neighbourhood and dominated headlines in its aftermath.

Shyanne was one of two people killed and 22 wounded when shooters opened fire on each other at a community barbecue on July 16, 2012. Joshua Yasay, 23, also died at the scene. Afifa Charles was also at the barbecue but Devante and his two other siblings were not.

Shyanne’s smile glows from giant portraits in the family home, and thoughts of her loom large on momentous occasions like this one.

“It was a lot of pressure and weight on the shoulders,” Devante says. “I just tried to do what she couldn’t.”

Charles says her daughter would have been thrilled. “She’d be screaming louder than I will,” she says.

“It was a goal for him. He accomplished it for himself and especially for his sister.”

Devante and his mom spoke to the Star in the North York townhouse where they’ve lived since Shyanne’s death. It’s the home Afifa Charles grew up in and the place she fled to immediately. Her father Tyrone Charles, living there at the time, has since moved into his own place.

Devante started Grade 8 that fall but transferred from his Scarborough school after two weeks because it was too far, and attended Woodbine Middle School where he stayed for Grade 8 and 9. He went to Vanier for high school.

His mother recalls being scared about how angry and withdrawn he seemed in those first few years.

“I didn’t want him to hate the world and stop living.”

Her father and the rest of their big Trinidadian family were a huge source of support. So were the long talks between mother and son, she says.

“I realized he was just like me, he kept everything in.”

Devante remembers the first year of high school as a time of feeling gloomy and alone. He’d come home and hide out in his room listening to music.

“I didn’t even go outside on weekends.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Support through Boost Child and Youth Advocacy Centre made a difference, and so did attentive school staff like guidance counsellor Zenobia Omarali, who Devante says helped him discover subjects like aerospace, electronics and tech design that appealed to his abilities as a hands-on learner.

“I’ve always liked working with my hands and fixing things,” says Devante. Realizing he could do that in school turned around his attitude.

Things started to change when “I took the chip off my shoulder,” he says.

His interest in mechanics, along with a five-month co-op placement in an auto centre this year, gave him a focus and pathway that makes a lot of sense to his mom.

“‘Car’ was his first word,” says Charles. “Ever since he could talk he’s been obsessed with cars.”

In January, he plans to start the automotive technician course at Centennial College, with the help of an outside scholarship he received for victims of violence.

“I’m going to have tears in my eyes too when I see him walk across that stage,” Omarali said before the ceremony.

Vince Furlin, who taught Devante three courses in the aeronautics and aviation program said he was one of his “favourite students” because he took responsibility for his work and used every opportunity to improve.

“He gave an effort. I’m very proud to see that he graduated. It’s a really good day.”

It turned into even a better day when Devante was presented with the Perseverance and Personal Achievement award at the ceremony.

Charles calls her son a role model and says she is very grateful to his “amazing teachers who helped him and motivated him.”

“He could have been a statistic, mad at the world, hating everybody. I’m so glad he didn’t turn out that way.”

By statistic, says Charles, she means one of the disproportionately high number of Black youth, especially boys, who don’t graduate, including many of Devante’s friends who he says ran out of gas and “just stopped coming.”

Instead, his mom points out he is setting an example for his sister Iyanna, who just graduated from Grade 6, his 9-year-old brother Isaiah and other kids facing difficult circumstances.

On graduation day, Devante had other things on his mind. Like going to the barber, getting his black dress shirt and pants ready and feeling “kind of nervous.”

Gliding across the stage discreetly was never going to be an option though, with a huge cast of relatives on hand bearing signs and a bash featuring his grandfather’s home cooking afterwards.

When the excitement is over, Devante has a few things in mind for the summer. He hopes to find work at the auto centre where he completed his co-op. And given his passion for cars, he figures it’s about time to get his driver’s permit too.