I’ve had the rare opportunity to meet Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Two polar opposite people. Politics aside, here was my experience with each of them:

I met President Obama in a high school classroom. It was only a handful of days after my brother was killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting. He spent hours meeting with all 26 families who lost someone in the shooting.

You can only imagine the pain he experienced that day.

We showed him a picture of my brother and explained that Jesse saved 9 classmates during the shooting.

President Obama’s exact words were, “I can tell your boy was a hero. I’m sure you weren’t surprised to hear he saved those kids.”

The President hugged each of us.

I met President Trump at the release of his Federal School Safety Report. We gathered at the White House to share the report with the world.

We, to a 2nd U.S. President, shared Jesse’s heroism during the shooting. President Trump was visually moved.

As the meeting concluded, President Trump invited me to the Oval Office for a private moment.

The President took Jesse’s photo and stared at it for a few moments. He asked if he could sign it and called Jesse’s courage in the face of a shooter “amazing.”

Both President Trump and President Obama treated me with the utmost respect and class. More importantly, they honored my brother’s memory.

A lesson: Politics only divides us if we allow it to.

We are all Americans.