Emilie's Light

The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary eight years ago was one of the saddest events we have ever covered. Yet as her story from 2017 shows, this mother of a young victim found hope and healing

- ALISSA PARKER Vancouver, Washington

OUR FAMILY LOVED EASTER.We loved the beautiful church service, the pretty new dresses for our girls. I always woke up excited to celebrate God’s promise of new life.

This year, I woke up with a knot in my stomach.

It had been three months since I’d watched Emilie, my six-year-old daughter, board the yellow school bus that would take her to first grade at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Three months since my phone had rung with a message that there’d been a school shooting in Newtown.

Three months since an ashen-faced governor of Connecticut had walked into a classroom crowded with terrified parents and told us our worst fears had come true.

Emilie had been a shining light in our family—a precociously empathetic child, keenly aware of other people’s feelings. She’d doted on her younger sisters, Madeline and Samantha. She would draw pictures for me and my husband, Robbie, always with sweet messages, especially when we needed cheering up. The first word she’d ever said was “happy.”

She was murdered by a troubled young man who had walked into her school and fatally shot 20 children and six adult staff with two semiautomatic pistols and a semiautomatic rifle before taking his own life.

And now it was Easter, one of Emilie’s favorite holidays. I didn’t know how I would make it through the day. Much less heal from the grief that still consumed me.