‘IT FEELS LIKE A LIFETIME AGO’
Sandy Hook mom of Jack Pinto: ‘It’s heart-wrenching to think of the life he didn’t get to live’
It’s hard for Tricia Pinto to think of her son, Jack, as a high school junior.
“But I imagine he would be driving and pushing the limits with curfews,” she said recently.
“I think about how he would be enjoying his high school years with his friends and playing sports and thinking about college,” Pinto added. “It’s heartwrenching to think of the life he didn’t get to live and the life we as a family missed in not having him with us.”
Jack was among the 20 first graders who were shot and killed along with six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012. He was remembered in his obituary as a sports-loving kid with a lively spirit and steely determination.
“At 6 years old, Jack was a gregarious and energetic boy who wanted nothing more than to be big enough to play football and to read an entire book on his own without any help sounding out words,” his mother said. “Jack woke up every morning with a smile on his face and an energy that matched that enthusiasm. He loved playing with his friends. He loved school and summer vacations. He loved swimming and collecting rocks. He loved listening to music and singing in the bathtub.”
Jack’s love of wrestling, football and all kinds of sports continued to benefit other kids on playing fields and gyms across the nation after he was killed. Every Kid Sports, a nonprofit organization that helps underprivileged kids with uniforms, equipment and registration fees, has a tribute to Jack on its website that says the Pinto family made a donation to Every Kid Sports from the Jack A. Pinto Charitable Gift Fund that enabled more than 400 children around the country to enjoy the same opportunities to play that Jack had.
Jack was a member of the Newtown Youth Wrestling Association and members of the George Mason University wrestling team, who didn’t know the boy personally but heard he was a wrestler, wrote his name on their headgear before a meet in December 2012 against Drexel University at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Jack’s father, Dean Pinto, could not be reached for comment, but he was spotlighted in May 2013 for efforts to keep gruesome crime scene photos and recordings out of the public domain. Pinto and other victims’ family members urged Connecticut lawmakers to seal the material against use by fringe bloggers and anti-gun activists such as filmmaker Michael Moore.
Tricia Pinto, 52, works for the town of Newtown’s social services department as liaison to the victims’ families. She and Dean Pinto have another son, Benjamin, who is a junior at UConn. Tricia Pinto also served on the commission that worked toward a permanent memorial for the victims, which was unveiled for Sandy Hook families on Nov. 12 and to the public the next day.
“The memorial holds both beauty and grief,” she said. “Each name etched in the stone of the surrounding water feature represents a life that was loved and that is missed.”
Jack was buried in the jersey of his favorite player, New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz. At a game against the Atlanta Falcons on the Sunday after the shooting, Cruz wrote messages to Jack on his cleats — “RIP Jack Pinto” and “Jack Pinto, my hero.” A playground, one of 26 memorial playgrounds built as part of the “Sandy Ground Project: Where Angels Play” effort, was dedicated to Jack’s memory in Union Beach, New Jersey.
“It feels like a lifetime ago when he got on the bus on that bright Friday morning in December 2012,” Tricia Pinto said. “At the same time, it feels like I was with him just yesterday. I am grateful to have been his mother and miss him terribly.”