WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah — Months after a shocking murder-suicide took five members of his family, 18-year-old Sha Reh remains positive and forward-looking as he gets ready for his high school graduation on Wednesday.
“My high school journey, it’s been wonderful,” he shared the day before he becomes a 2025 graduate.
Through the heartache he has faced, Sha Reh has learned valuable lessons, including one he said has stood out the most.
“No matter the place you call home, or the broken bones along the road, just know that you’re not alone.”
3 kids, 2 adults dead after homicide in West Valley City neighborhood:
Sha Reh is his family's only survivor after his father shot and killed his mother, brother, and two sisters inside their West Valley City home in December. The teen, who was also shot, lost his vision and spent weeks in the hospital recuperating from his injuries.
Now, as Reh prepares to walk across the stage as a Granger High School graduate with a near-perfect GPA, he'll be remembering moments much bigger than himself.
“When I look back at it, it's filled with so much memories of my friends and family, that makes me a bit emotional at times,” he admitted Tuesday.
The group known as "My Hometown Initiative" in West Valley City has been there for Reh since the beginning.
"He is so full of life, faith and example, no matter what someone has been through, when the community rallies with them, he can have a good life," said Mark Rupp with "My Hometown Initiative."
Reh remains resilient as he continues to rehab from a severe brain injury.
“Time is like a leaf in the wind," he said. "It’s unpredictable, unforeseen, fleeting, and you have to make the best of it.”
While speaking months after one of the darkest days of his life and just hours before one of his brightest, Reh expressed gratitude to the community that helped lift him throughout his ordeal.
“My friends here, they’ve been with me for so long. And they’ve been, saying they’re friends doesn’t really do them justice. They’re more like family to me now, I love them with all my heart. They’ve been with me through this,” Reh shared.
With the support of hundreds behind him, Reh will walk across the graduation stage with a focus on his future goals.
“In the fall, I will be going to the Utah School for the Deaf and Blind to get more practice with my skills, technology, brain, movement or mobility," he said, "and I’m hoping to navigate the University of Utah by the end of this year.”
