Back on Dec. 14, 2012, 20 children and six staff members did not return home after a gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. and opened fire.
“We try to avoid kind of the pressure around the big milestones and the annual day of remembrance for us. But the 10 years is significant. There’s no way around that,” parent Michele Gay told CBS2.
Those who survived were forever shaped by what they saw, heard, and lost that tragic day.
Gay said her 7-year-old daughter Josephine left behind a legacy of joy when she was taken from her 10 years ago.
“I think we have learned as a family that it’s very much a journey and you do have to take stops along the way, take care of yourself along the way. And sometimes you’re doing better than other times, but we are moving forward,” she said. “We’re never moving on. We’re always keeping our little girl, our little sister with us.”
The tragic day was half a lifetime ago for those who were students, such as Liv Doscher.
“I feel like the further and further we move away from it, the more I feel I’m scrambling to just remember. So I really do think that the way I’m going to cope with that is just making, through people, kind of making sure I’m staying close to my best friend, making sure when I come home for breaks that I meet up with old teachers that I’m close with,” she said.
Nicole Hockley lost her 6-year-old son Dylan. She says she’s proud to have turned her grief into advocacy. Through her organization Sandy Hook Promise, Hockley says they have prevented 11 school shootings and hundreds of suicides by training students and educators to report early warning signs of violence.
“It has to become better with fewer shootings. I think it’s in the last ten years one of the numbers I’ve seen is that we’re at 1 million people impacted by gun violence. This year alone, I think we’re already over 40,000 deaths,” she said. “It’s the number one cause of death for children under the age of 19. We’re averaging two mass shootings a day.”
Last month, Newtown opened a new $3.4 million memorial to the 20 first graders and six educators killed. It’s located near the rebuilt Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Former Gov. Dannel Malloy was in office at the time and is now reflecting on the way the town has moved forward since 2012.
“The other children were their child’s classmate, the other teacher or teachers’ aide was their spouse’s friend. Just compounds itself, making it extraordinarily difficult to overcome,” he told CBS2. “But I think so many of these parents have done such an outstanding job of trying to care for a broader society. It really is quite impressive.”
Later this morning, U.S. Senators from Connecticut Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy are set to honor the memory of those lost on the Senate floor. They also plan to call on Congress to take further steps to address America’s gun violence epidemic.