U.S.
NEWTOWN, Conn. — Firefighters donning Santa hats sell Christmas trees. Cheerleaders collect donations to compete in a national competition. People put their best faces on and go about their days.
Dec. 14 is coming, and will bring with it the glare of the media spotlight. There will be no official ceremony to mark the first anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, but residents here are determined not to let a single act of evil shatter their quaint New England town.
For many, though, the smiles mask a deep pain. Behind closed doors, they cry.
Sam Mihailoff, 63, who has lived in Newtown for more than three decades, sat in his truck Sunday morning outside Dunkin’ Donuts, selling “We Are Newtown” bumper stickers.
As he looked through his windshield and two little girls strolled through the parking lot, he thought of the children who died that day.
“I am still hurting a year later,” he said. “I am very happy that people have children who believe in Santa Claus and make their children’s lives as happy as they can. I will never be able to say ‘Merry Christmas’ again. I will say ‘Peace.’”
For many residents, the pain is still raw. To some, it seems almost like yesterday that 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot his way into the school and killed 26 people, including 20 children, before taking his own life. He killed his mother before going on the rampage.
The “very tense horror” is gone, Mihailoff said, but certain songs on the radio can bring him to tears. He recently cried while driving down a road in the village of Sandy Hook when he saw balloons out to mark the birthday of one of the victims. Mihailoff knows tidbits about the victims’ lives — how 6-year-old Catherine Hubbard was so in tune with nature; that 7-year-old Daniel Barden wanted to be a firefighter; that 6-year-old Jack Pinto was a fan of New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz.
“Some of these kids, they had life all sorted out,” he said.
Sally Lyddy, a mother of five grown children who has lived in Newtown for 32 years, said the shooting was as painful as losing her husband, Thomas, to cancer seven years ago.
“This just took the cake, I think, for me,” she said. “Nice little town. Nice people.”
Lyddy has difficulty visiting downtown Sandy Hook. She can be reminded of the shooting when she sees her own grandchildren or when photographs of the victims appear on the television news. Tears, she said, well in her eyes.
“I just envision the whole scene,” she said, “and it makes me ill.”
Old wounds were reopened for residents in November, when a 44-page report was released detailing the shooter’s path of destruction through the school. And this month, recordings of the 911 calls made to Newtown police were made public and broadcast by some news outlets.
George Trudell, 77, of Sandy Hook, said he gets emotional when he sees media reports on the massacre.
“It’s horrific just to see the pictures of those baby dolls, I call them, that we lost,” he said. “The pain will never go away. It will diminish over time, as time does heal. But it is something you will never forget.”
People are in varying stages of grief.
William Moses, 72, a bus driver in Newtown who drives middle and high school students, said if the students are hurting, they aren’t showing it.
“I see no evidence at all with the children,” he said. “Everybody’s been strong. There have been no discussions on the buses.”
As for himself, he hasn’t allowed the mass shooting to interfere with his life.
“It’s there,” he said. “It upsets me quite a bit. I feel terrible for the families. I don’t understand why this kid did this thing, but I don’t go along all depressed about it.”
Richard Baczewski, 38, whose daughter attended Sandy Hook Elementary when the shooting happened but was not at the school, said she has been doing remarkably well. She knows what happened but doesn’t talk much about it. As the anniversary approaches, Baczewski said, he will be thinking of the families who don’t have their loved ones.
“It’s getting harder now that it’s coming to the date,” he said.
Brad Butts, who was chair of the counseling department at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., in 1999 when 12 students and a teacher were killed by two teenagers, encouraged Newtown residents to rely on their families, faith and friends for support.
Butts said that if people feel the tragedy is affecting their everyday lives, they should seek help.
“It does take a different amount of time for different folks,” he said. “If people are stuck, there might be a need for further resources and perhaps some counseling and therapy. The hurt and the pain and the loss is never going to go away completely, and there will always be things that remind them of the tragedy.”
But there is reason for hope, he said.
“A number of the kids that were there that day,” he said, “are now teaching at Columbine.”
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