Forever living with tragedy
ON AN AUTUMN afternoon in Brush Prairie, Wash., a damp breeze pulls through the branches of tall cedars outside the home of Robbie and Alissa Parker. Painted pumpkins sit in the shade of their covered porch.
A small fountain bubbles next to the front walk, where a child’s pail and shovel sits on a stone wall.
Inside, Robbie reads on a sofa with 9-year-old Madeline and pulls her closer when she asks for help figuring out a word she doesn’t know.
“What’s a cul-de-sac?” she asks.
Robbie leans over and explains it to her.
“Oh, like our street in Connecticut?” she asks, looking up at him. “Sort of,” he replies. The Parkers lived in Connecticut, in Newtown, when their oldest of three daughters, Emilie, was still alive. Emilie, 6, was one of the 20 first-graders killed five years ago, on Dec. 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
In the months after the shooting, as the Parker family weighed whether to stay in Connecticut, they were forced to ask questions they never imagined they would have to consider:
If they stayed in Newtown, they feared their family would be forever defined by the events of that unbearable day. But if they moved away, how could they create a new life for their young family without leaving Emilie behind?
On the morning of the shooting, Alissa remembers how Emilie crawled into bed with her, put her face near her own and said a cheery “Hi Mom.” They cuddled in the blankets. Alissa didn’t want the moment to end and wished they could spend the day cuddled up inside.
But soon it was time to get ready for school. They went downstairs to Emilie’s bedroom to pick out her outfit for the day. As they sat in her room, Emilie remarked that the large zinnialike flowers painted across her bedroom wall were all separate, but also connected. Some had black petals and pink centers, while others had pink petals and black centers.
Alissa nodded her head and smiled.
That morning, Madeline, then 4, had wandered off while they waited for the bus. Alissa only had time to quickly hug Emilie before rushing off to get her younger daughter. Emilie didn’t wave from the bus that morning. Alissa remembers thinking: “It’s just this once.”
In the days that followed the shooting, Alissa would wake up, look around the house and feel like throwing up.
“All of the love, the warmth I had felt there before was gone,” she said.
A few months later, the Parkers flew to Washington for a friend’s wedding. They had lived in the Pacific Northwest when Emilie was a toddler and Robbie was studying to be a physician’s assistant. There, the memories of Emilie were all happy ones.
Back home in Newtown, reminders of the shooting were everywhere.
“When I would drive anywhere, I knew the route the shooter had taken,” Alissa said. “I knew the route I had taken that day to the school and even if I went out of my way to not think about it or avoid these spots, I’d see people who had become a trigger for me.”
In the end, the Parkers decided to move, to resettle in a place where they could control how much the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary defined their story. They decided they did not want to remember Emilie as a victim and they didn’t want the way she died to eclipse the way she’d lived.
“It wasn’t something that was going to follow us, every moment of our lives,” Alissa said.
Madeline and Samantha, 8, have had to grow up learning how to talk about Emilie. When they share their story, Samantha and Madeline wonder, why does everyone hug us? Are we famous?
No, Alissa and Robbie say. It just means what happened to your sister was very sad.
“We didn’t want Emilie to be this shrine,” Robbie said. “We don’t want them to feel less than or to grow up thinking they’re not as good.”
Whenever Robbie and Alissa introduce themselves in Washington, they face a series of choices. How much do we share? Are we prepared for their reaction?
“I say, ‘I have three daughters. My oldest would be 11 in May, and I have an 8- and 9-year-old,’ ” he says, looking down. “I’ll always feel good about acknowledging her.”
A gallery of framed pictures of their three daughters hangs in uniform squares. The photos capture candid, happy moments in the family’s life.
“Yes we’ve seen the worst of humanity, but we’ve also seen the best,” Alissa said.
“And we’ve also been a witness to the generosity, not just from people of our own country, but people all over the world and so we’ve also been a witness to just see how incredibly powerful and good people can be.”