You only have one life to live, so why not live it great
When fifteen-year-old Gracie Muehlberger was killed at Saugus High School in 2019, she left behind more than grief — she left behind her own words, a journal entry urging her future self to live fully, which her parents have since carried as a guiding philosophy. In the years that followed, a CBS News project documented eight bedrooms of school shooting victims across the country, ultimately becoming an Oscar-winning documentary that asks a fractured nation to find common ground not in policy, but in the irreplaceable particularity of a child's life. These empty rooms are not arguments — they are invitations to remember what is actually at stake.
- A family returns home after the unthinkable and retreats to their daughter's room, where a stage her father built and videos she recorded become the only way left to feel her presence.
- Hidden in a trinket box, letters Gracie wrote to her future self reveal a girl full of anticipation — and a single line about living fully that her parents have since tattooed on skin and written into daily life.
- Correspondent Steve Hartman, worn down by decades of covering school shootings that blur into statistics, begins writing letters to bereaved parents with one quiet request: let us photograph what your child left behind.
- Eight bedrooms — a shoe on the floor, a makeup cap left off, an outfit chosen for the next day — become evidence of lives interrupted mid-stride, more powerful than any headline.
- An Oscar-winning documentary emerges from those photographs, reframing a politically deadlocked debate by returning it to its most undeniable truth: no one wants more empty rooms.
On November 14, 2019, Bryan and Cindy Muehlberger came home to a house their fifteen-year-old daughter Gracie would never return to. They went straight to her room and stayed. Cindy slept in Gracie's bed for weeks. The room held the shape of a life still in motion — photo booth strips, a fuzzy makeup chair, an outfit she had laid out for the following day. Her father had built her a small stage with a microphone, where she would perform for friends who received handwritten invitations reading "The show starts at 7."
What they did not know until after she was gone was that Gracie had left them something to hold onto. In a trinket box, they found letters she had written to her future self — one for her first day of high school, full of warmth and humor and self-encouragement. In another journal entry, she had written: that life was short, and the only answer was to live it fully, genuinely, and fill it with memory. Bryan had those words tattooed on his arm. He and Cindy made them their mantra — a decision to stop deferring happiness and be present for the life still in front of them.
Gracie's room became one of eight documented by CBS News photographer Lou Bopp, at the invitation of veteran correspondent Steve Hartman. Hartman had covered school shootings since 1997 and watched the victims blur into statistics over the years. He began writing letters to parents across the country, asking only to photograph what their children had left behind. The resulting images — a shoe on the floor, toothpaste without its cap, a life interrupted mid-stride — became the foundation of an Oscar-winning Netflix documentary, "All the Empty Rooms."
Director Josh Seftel saw in those photographs a way through the political deadlock that surrounds school shootings. Empty bedrooms and children, he believed, were common ground. When Anderson Cooper asked Bryan what grief had taught him, Bryan described it as a black ball — all-consuming at first, and never truly smaller. The only way forward was to build a larger life around it, adding new memories and love until there was room enough for both the loss and the living.
On the afternoon of November 14, 2019, Bryan and Cindy Muehlberger learned that their fifteen-year-old daughter Gracie had been killed in a shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California. When they arrived home, they went directly to her room and stayed there. Cindy slept in Gracie's bed for the next week or two. The room became a sanctuary—a place where they could feel close to her, where they could look at photographs and lie down and remember.
Gracie's room held the evidence of a life in motion. There were photo booth pictures of her making funny faces with friends, a fuzzy-topped makeup chair positioned in front of a mirror, an outfit hanging on a clothing rack that she had planned to wear the next day. She had been a performer, a creative spirit who loved to sing and dance and act. Her father had built her a stage in her room, complete with a microphone and stand. She would invite friends downstairs to her shows, handing out little invitations that read "The show starts at 7." She had recorded videos of herself—singing, dancing, acting—and those recordings became a way for her parents to see her again, to hear her voice, to feel the rush of her presence.
But there was something else in that room that the Muehlbergers did not know about until after she was gone. In a trinket box, they found letters Gracie had written to her future self. One was titled "First Day of High School." In it, she had written: "Dear Future Self: OMG, it's high school. I've been waiting for this day forever. Don't be nervous, you'll meet some of your lifelong friends, and also some enemies. Don't focus on negativity. You will get through this. Keep the people that make you happy, and lose, well, the others. Wear somethin' cute, obviously. I love you. Good luck. Gracie from the past."
In another journal entry, Gracie had written a line that would reshape how her parents moved through their grief: "You only have one life to live, so why not live it great, real, and fill it with memories and experiences?" Bryan had those words tattooed on his arm. He and Cindy adopted them as their mantra. They decided to live that way—to stop deferring happiness, to stop waiting for tomorrow, to be present for the life in front of them right now.
Gracie's room is one of eight bedrooms documented in a project that began with veteran CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp. Hartman had been covering school shootings for decades—he reported on the first one he could remember, in Pearl, Mississippi, in 1997, where two students were killed and seven wounded. Over the years, he had covered so many that the details blurred. The names faded. The victims became statistics. He wanted to change that. He began writing letters to parents across the country whose children had been killed in school shootings, asking a simple request: allow a photographer to come and document their child's room, to capture what was left behind.
Bopp photographed the room of Alyssa Alhadeff, a fourteen-year-old killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. One of her shoes lay on the floor. The cap was off her toothpaste. Her makeup sat on the bathroom counter. The images told a story of a life interrupted mid-stride, a girl who had left her room expecting to return.
The project became the subject of an Academy Award-winning Netflix documentary called "All the Empty Rooms," directed by filmmaker Josh Seftel. Seftel saw in the photographs a way to reframe a polarized debate. School shootings had become a political issue, divided along familiar lines. But empty bedrooms and children—those were something else. Those were common ground. No one wanted more school shootings. No one wanted more empty rooms.
When Anderson Cooper asked Bryan what he had learned in his grief that might help others, Bryan spoke about the fragility of time. He did not know that the last text from Gracie, the last "I love you" between them, would be the last one. Life was short and precious. People spent so much energy focused on tomorrow, on the future, that they missed the happiness right in front of them. He described grief as a black ball, all-consuming at first. The only way forward was not to make the ball smaller—it never got smaller—but to add new memories and new experiences and new love around it, until the sphere grew large enough to hold both the grief and the life still being lived. That was what he and Cindy were trying to do now.
Citas Notables
You only have one life to live, so why not live it great, real, and fill it with memories and experiences— Gracie Muehlberger, in her journal
Life is so short and so precious. Don't be so focused on tomorrow and the future and forego what's right in front of you and the happiness you can have right in front of you.— Bryan Muehlberger
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why do you think Hartman felt compelled to photograph these rooms instead of just writing about the shootings?
Because he had forgotten. He'd covered Pearl, Mississippi, and couldn't remember the victims' names anymore. He realized that's what happens to all of us—the details fade, the people become abstractions. A photograph of a room doesn't let you do that. You see the shoe on the floor, the toothpaste cap, and suddenly there's a person there.
The documentary won an Academy Award. What do you think that recognition meant?
It meant that people were hungry for a different way to talk about this. The usual arguments—gun control, mental health, security—they're important, but they keep us stuck. A room full of a dead child's things doesn't argue. It just sits there and asks you to see.
Gracie wrote "You only have one life to live, so why not live it great, real, and fill it with memories and experiences?" Did she know something?
I don't think she knew she was going to die. But she was fifteen, and she was already thinking about how to live. She was writing letters to her future self, trying to figure out who she wanted to be. That's what makes it so hard to read—she was still planning.
Bryan talks about grief as a black ball that never gets smaller. Is that how most parents experience it?
I don't know what most parents experience. But what he's describing is honest. He's not saying the grief goes away or that you "move on." He's saying you build a life around it. You add new things. The grief stays, but it's not the only thing anymore.
What do you think Gracie would think of her parents living by her words?
She'd probably think it was funny that they got a tattoo. But she'd also recognize herself in it—that's what she was always doing, performing, creating, trying to fill her life with something real. In a way, they're performing her now. They're living the life she wrote about.