A chance meeting on Tuesday turned into a powerfully emotional moment for Lady Gaga. The singer, who was driven to tears on Monday night while reading the names of the 49 victims of the attack at Orlando’s Pulse gay nightclub, wrote a lengthy Instagram post on Tuesday about meeting a friend of one of the dead.
She recalled going to an exercise class Tuesday morning with an instructor named Loui, who walked in and “asked us with a boisterous tone ‘How is everyone doing today?!!'” She said there wasn’t much of a reaction in the room, just a “thick silence as we all stood there in our trauma.”
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“Then Loui shouts ‘Oh no! It’s Tuesday.,’ with an emphatic hand movement, ‘Today is going to be a good day,'” she wrote. “As the music rose to the lyrics ‘when Im with you, I’m standing with an army’ and we all climbed together, sweating out our stress and our thoughts, he yelled ‘today get stronger! and then stronger! And when your finished here go out there and spread that strength to the world.'”
After sweating it out to the inspiring message set to Ellie Goulding’s “Army” Gaga said she thanked the instructor, who asked if he could tell her something. “I started to instantly tear up. He said ‘I didn’t want to bring it up’ I said ‘of course you should, I’m so sorry.’ He then told me he was at the rally the night before, where I was also, and that he heard me read the names of some of the Orlando victims. He said ‘the first name you read was my friend Eddie.’ I said ‘Edward.’ He said ‘Sotomayor.’ In this moment I was reminded why it’s so important that we protect all people and never doubt the absolute human heart that can always suprise you with its strength and love.”
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She praised Loui for showing up to work on Tuesday to try and make her feel strong, even after the horrible blow to his community and the loss of his friend. “That’s why you should never devalue another human, no matter their wrapping, their heart is just like yours and people you never expect to lift you up, will.”