Newtown moves forward 5 years after massacre
Tangible reminders of the Sandy Hook massacre linger five years later, but to see Newtown, Conn., today is to see how grief endures and evolves.
NEWTOWN, Conn. — Tangible reminders of the massacre still linger. On the door of the Blue Colony Diner, a frayed sticker clings to the glass. A teddy bear with wings cradles a smaller bear, alongside a message declaring that the town’s “26 Angels” are “Always Here, Never Forgotten.”
Not all the signs of the bloodshed that erupted five years ago at Sandy Hook Elementary are as visible. But they exist — in the features of the new school building, like bullet-resistant windows and reinforced walls, meant to ease the fears of parents still haunted by memories of a 20-year-old man storming into the old building and killing 20 first-graders and six adults in a spray of gunfire.
‘It’s still so raw’
There is also the uncomfortable silence that creeps into everyday conversations. The town struggles to figure out how to talk about what happened. But the community quickly developed a shorthand to refer to it: “the tragedy,” or “12/14,” the date of the anniversary, which is occurring yet again. Some say they know it is coming — this “season of extra mourning,” as one teacher described it — as soon as the sun starts setting earlier in the fall.
“It’s still so raw,” said a mother whose son and daughter attend elementary school in town.
In the five years since the shooting, which transformed a fairly anonymous Connecticut town into a buzzword in the caustic national debate on gun violence, armed men have killed people at a nightclub, an outdoor music festival, a social services center, movie theaters, a church in South Carolina and a church in Texas.
The displays of grief follow a familiar routine: Candlelight vigils and makeshift memorials. National offerings of thoughts and prayers. Pleas to tighten gun laws, immediately trailed by calls to avoid politicizing a tragedy.
But to see Newtown in 2017 is to see how grief endures and evolves, and how a community can, however fitfully, negotiate a way forward. It is an uncomfortable process, involving a delicate dance between not wanting to dwell on the loss and not wanting to stray from a vow to never forget.
“It’s a very tricky balance,” said Abbey Clements, who was a second-grade teacher at Sandy Hook. “We work really hard to be resilient and strong. And I think it’s OK to recognize that we’re still grieving, and that we should never forget. We don’t want to forget.”
The shooting punctured the sense of security that blanketed Newtown, a quiet and bucolic New England community, and stunned a country that could not comprehend an act as depraved as mowing down 6- and 7-year-old children. That day, an emotional President Barack Obama dabbed his eyes as he addressed the nation.
The shock waves have, by now, faded to something more subtle. Yet they still ripple through the town, stirring concentric circles of anguish, leaving people with varying degrees of pain and differing sets of struggles. The victims’ relatives are at the core. Beyond them are the teachers and students who witnessed the carnage; the emergency workers who responded to it; and then an entire community.
Kindness, lawsuits
“It’s almost impossible to ask the question, ‘How is the town doing?’ It depends entirely on who you ask,” said David Wheeler, whose son, Benjamin, 6, was killed. “One of the things an event like this does — it doesn’t change you, it simply heightens who you already are. There are beautiful, meaningful, thoughtful and very kind gestures at every turn, from people you know well and people you don’t know at all.”
The Wheelers are one of nine families, along with a teacher who was shot and survived, who have sued the companies that made and sold the military-style assault rifle used in the attack by Adam Lanza, the gunman. After years of legal back and forth, the families are awaiting a decision from the Connecticut Supreme Court.
The town is planning a memorial, which will be set on a 5-acre parcel near the school. Design guidelines issued by the Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial Commission described its hope for “an inspirational setting in which to remember the victims of the tragic event that shocked the Newtown community and the world.”