Sandy Hook, Va. Tech parents share advice

The questions are endless, and relentless.

How am I going to survive this? Will my family, my husband, my wife, my mother, my father, my sister, my brother ever be OK again? Should I get out of bed? Should we sell the house and move? What will happen when school reopens? Should it reopen? Will the reporters ever stop calling? Should I talk to them? What should I say? What can I say? Whom can I trust? Where will we be in a day, a week, a month, a year? Will the tears ever stop? How many more funerals can I take?

Joe Samaha and Nicole Hockley know these questions all too well. They know that these questions are likely roaring through the heads of survivors and families of people killed in the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. From personal experience, they also know that answers can be elusive and, in many cases, nonexistent. Samaha’s 18-year-old daughter, Reema, was one of 32 people killed by a gunman on April 16, 2007 on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va. She was a freshman at the university. Hockley’s 6-year-old son, Dylan, was one of 26 people shot to death on Dec. 14, 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Twenty children, all 7 years old or younger, and six members of the school’s faculty died in the attack.

Today, Samaha is the president of the VTV Family Outreach Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Fairfax, Va., and created by families of victims and survivors of the shooting at Virginia Tech. The foundation’s mission is, as stated on its website, “to prevent Virginia Tech-type shootings through education and advocacy; to employ comprehensive educational efforts to expand community and student awareness of campus safety issues; and to offer compassion, support and hope to those affected by violence.”

Hockley co-founded and serves as managing director of Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Newtown that works toward preventing gun violence through education in, as Hockley says, “those days, weeks, months, years before someone decides to pick up a firearm and hurt someone else or themselves.”

On Friday morning, while stopping for breakfast in Coral Springs between national-media interviews and meetings with Broward County officials, Hockley discussed what all of us can do to help the Stoneman Douglas shooting’s survivors and families navigate the difficult times ahead.

Here are excerpts from our conversations with Samaha and Hockley.

Joe Samaha, president, VTV Family Outreach Foundation

There is today, tomorrow and 20 years from now. That’s some of the stuff that we thought about, that some of our families had the ability to think about: “What is going to happen to my brain 20 years from now?” Let me tell you: It’s never the same, neither the heart nor the brain.

The long-term care is what’s really needed. That’s the message I want to put out there. It’s not only about the immediate needs. It’s about the long-term care that these families are going to need and these survivors are going to need.

If I can suggest one thing: Every family member needs to be appointed a liaison person. That means one person needs to be a victim’s assistant or advocate, and that’s who they advocate for, and everything gets funneled through that person. The family needs to learn to trust those persons. That is the most important. You have 17 families [in Parkland]. You need 17 people to be their advocate.

All the police, EMT, all the coroner stuff — all should be channeled to the liaison person. That would establish some organization. It brings some organization to the chaos.

Nicole Hockley, founder and managing director, Sandy Hook Promise

In my experience, I’m guessing [the families] have no idea what they really need right now. And sometimes, the ones who need the most are the ones who don’t ask for it. So try to anticipate their needs. A therapy dog may be great for one family and completely wrong for another family. So offering multiple modes and ideas can help. I’m focusing in on the families of loss in that, but there are so many other families that are going to be traumatized. The ripple effects of grief and trauma — you can’t underestimate that in a community. Accept that everyone’s going to be traumatized in some way, and be there for each other.

Also accept the differences that come about. In my experience, after a tragedy, people come together quickly because of a shared outrage, shared loss, and they want to do something. And just as quickly, people will decide there are different things they want to do, and that can cause fractures. All I can say there is just allow that to happen and respect every person’s individual choice and voice. Because no one’s right, and no one’s wrong.