Sandy Hook Anniversary: Now What?

As with some of the more horrific events that have plagued our last decade, we will all, unfortunately, remember where we were and what we were doing as the reality of the unthinkable acts at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown were unfolding 3 years ago yesterday.

I was at the Newtown Starbucks meeting with a client. My youngest was in school 3 miles up the road.

Emphasizing the gravity of the event, as the next 24 hours unfolded, was the proximity and the people we knew, friends, and friends of friends whose kids attended Sandy Hook Elementary.

Fast forward 3 years later since the Sandy Hook tragedy and with a bit more perspective I’m drawn, as are most people, to come up with SOME sort of SOMETHING that makes sense, that will help my kids, help this broken community, help these families, help…in some small way. Because there has been fallout; within the community, within surviving siblings and friends, and as we know as a nation: more anxiety, less trust, depression. The mental health professionals have had a busy 3 years.

We all feel very helpless....and frustrated. It’s hard to create healing when so little progress has been made in so many of our systems, and so many more incidents similar to the Sandy Hook massacre have occurred in such quick succession...in the THREE...LONG...YEARS.....SINCE.

Not accidentally, helping and helplessness share a word. In order to help my daughter not feel helpless following Sandy Hook she lovingly set out 20 luminary vigil candles in paper bags with heart cut outs along our walkway in honor of the 20 children killed (she would have set out 26 but we ran out of bags) on Saturday evening , along with many other Brookfield families. Being there for our friends in pain was both a help for us as well as for them. Drawing us together to mourn and count our own blessings and luck was a help. Realizing that on a relative scale many of our problems are very, very small was a help.

Was that enough? What’s enough? I suppose it’s whatever we can do in a small way. Whatever the vigilant and support groups such as Sandy Hook Promise and others that have sprung up since the shootings have done to try to evoke gun law changes. Whatever musicians like Jimmy Greene who, along with wife Nelba Maquez-Greene-lost their sweet daughter Ana in the shootings have created in his magnificent album Beautiful Life to honor the life of Ana and Nelba’s Ana Grace Project. And there are more projects, and non profits that have sprung up. But again, I ask, what’s enough?

There’s the anniversary. Done. Now what?

On a much broader scale, there is a huge sense of helplessness we as a nation are feeling right now as access to these (semi?) automatic weapons are so easily attainable and incidents such as what happened right here in our own little community increase at a startling rate, proving to us that neither we nor our children are safe, anywhere.

I will not turn this into a political discussion except to say this: when President Obama gave his talk the Sunday evening following the tragedy at Newtown High School citing that this was the 4th memorial service of this nature that he had attended in his 4 years of office, ears perked up. That was a statement no president wants to be making, and it was very clear that President Obama was no exception. He’d added:

“Can we honestly say that we are doing enough to keep our children, all of them, safe from harm?....I’ve been reflecting on this the last few days and if we’re honest with ourselves, the answer’s no we’re not doing enough. And we will have to change.”

As we know, he has given many more of these talks since then, each one more fervently and angrily than the one before. And still, nothing.

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m thinking that today, as in the day after the Sandy Hook anniversary, and the days to come, when the news buzz winds down, and things become quiet again for the families of the victims, will be even rougher than the Sandy Hook anniversary itself. It’s easy to remember, and contemplate on an anniversary of a tragedy, but the days following, just like the days following a funeral of a loved one, these are the hardest, quietest, most painful days. For how do we keep the memories alive, now that the buzz has gone to remind us, and we’re on to the next tragedy.

These are the days we need to think the most, reach out the most, and keep plugging away at righting this world gone wrong.

Help can be carried out in very personal and small ways. It certainly raises us up out of ourselves. It sure as heck makes us better people. And change, as scary as it may be at times, takes bravery and strength. Lets be brave, and strong for our kids. Lets help, lets be the change, finally, this time, for our kids, today, tomorrow, and the next day.