What we still refuse to see
On the morning of Memorial Day, my 7yearold son had his own plans for marking the holiday.
He collected a fistful of small American flags he’d been handed at past parades and declared his intentions to plant them in the soil at the graves of soldiers. A lesson in school must have resonated. He was also processing the death of the birth mother he never got to know, as we adopted him shortly after he was born.
The holiday delivered on its perennial expectation of heat, and we went exploring in our car. When we came upon a cemetery, he clutched his flags in the hopes of saluting strangers.
Others had already honored the town’s fallen, as the field was blanketed in stars and stripes. Stories emerged as we guided him on identifying the graves of soldiers. Tombstones require so little to reveal so much. Some soldiers made their sacrifice in wars yet unknown to a 7yearold. Other graves documented the loss of siblings, or of spouses.
Those who walked in his footsteps earlier that weekend had performed their duties well, so we could identify no graves with missing flags. He finally chose to plant his balsa wood dowels in the dirt beneath the names of spouses as we tried to explain shared sacrifices. I left him with Mom and strayed off to consider the stories on other stones.
At the crest of the hilltop near the rear of the burial ground, my eye caught colors that clashed with the red, white and blue. Only when I drew near did I notice the toys leaning against a few memorials.
An invisible riptide tore through me. I felt hopeless. I felt fury. I felt foolish.
Seven months later I still can’t explain why I didn’t realize a walk through the Newtown Village Cemetery might deliver us to the graves of some of the 20 children who were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012. After my 30 years in Stamford, we’d moved to Newtown two years ago.
I was standing alone, but was still processing my realization when I heard the approaching chatter of my son and wife following the same path I had.
I tried to hide my tears, not in shame but to protect my own child from discovering the horrors of that day. That day Barack Obama called the worst of his presidency. That day that still isn’t enough to shake Congress into scripting sensible gun laws.
My throat wasn’t working, so the words to redirect our son never came. His eye was drawn to the heartbreaking, whimsical carvings in this most solemn setting: hummingbirds and butterflies, a crescent moon and stars, a baseball bat and football, a heartshaped gravestone.
His stare rose inches from a Santa Claus and a race car among the trinkets and he did the math on dates etched into the stones. He found the words I couldn’t. “Children died. Why did they die?”
Mom, who is a teacher, did a better job than I possibly could to guide him. But there remains no answer to his query.
BI returned Thursday afternoon, this time alone. This time, I feel like a trespasser. This time, everything looks different.
The iron black gates circling the 1711 cemetery seem to mock the concept of protection. The void behind the children’s stones have become a reminder that there will be more pointless deaths.
I retrace our Memorial Day trail, slipping a few times in the ice. A few frosty flags remain unyielding, and I can only wonder if any of them were planted by my son.
As I near the graves of the children, I turn to contemplate the view. Across the road on the horizon is a wooden sleigh at the tip of Ram Pasture, a field that in another day will host Newtown’s tree lighting, a tradition that long predates the tragedy.
Three days after Monday’s snowfall, the only visible prints are from passing animals. The snow cloaks the base of the stones, along with most of the childhood memories left behind. A toy dog’s nose pokes through the ice. Santa’s head is virtually the only color on the monochrome scene.
I renew a pledge to the dead. The tightness in my throat returns as I say my prayer, finishing what I never got to start when my son gazed upon what too many still refuse to see.