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 Roig doesn't know if Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old shooter, ever
entered her classroom in Newtown, Connecticut, although she could
hear gunfire and terrified pleas from the hallway and adjacent
first-grade classroom.
"For myself, I am so aware that roles could have so easily been
reversed," said Roig, 30, who has since married and now uses the
name Roig-DeBellis.
"I remember, in the days after, it was so hard to get out of bed,"
she said, sitting on a sofa in her Greenwich, Connecticut home. "I
just walked around singing Amazing Grace just over and over and
over, because it was just so incredibly hard."
The December 14 tragedy at Sandy Hook, among the most deadly school
shootings in U.S. history, rocked this leafy, suburban town 70 miles
northeast of New York City. Coming just five months after a gunman
opened fire in a Colorado movie theater, killing 12, the murder of
20 6-and 7-year-olds forced a national reckoning about gun violence.
Lanza, a loner who appears to have had severe emotional problems,
used guns that were legally purchased by his mother, Nancy Lanza. He
killed her in her bed, then drove to the elementary school he had
once attended, shooting his way in just as the school day was
getting started. After the rampage, he shot himself.
As the nation prepares to mark the first anniversary of the December
14 massacre, Newtown has asked the public to stay away.
For her part, Roig-DeBellis has planned a trip — a spa visit and
maybe a nice dinner — anything to turn her focus away from the
terror and excruciating sadness of that day.
"AN OPEN HEART"
The offices of Sandy Hook Promise, a parents group founded in the
weeks after the shootings, are located in downtown Newtown. Artwork
sent by children from across the country has been framed and mounted
on the walls there. Scattered on tables are pamphlets on foundations
set up by the families.
Seated at one of those tables, Mark Barden, who lost his son,
Daniel, gives a long pause when asked about forgiveness.
"I'm trying to approach every bit of this with an open heart and an
open mind," said Barden. "It's a work in progress."
Like many other Sandy Hook parents, Barden has kept up a punishing
schedule over the last year, traveling to Washington to meet with
lawmakers to support a gun law that stalled in the U.S. Senate, and
promoting the work of Sandy Hook Promise.
"Maybe it has saved me," he said of the group. "The way that Daniel
lived his short life, I know that he would have done a whole lot of
good. We take it very seriously now that it's our responsibility to
do that good work."
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For Barden, a guitarist who often performs in town, every day is an
anniversary. The last haircut. The last swim team practice. The last
Thanksgiving.
"A lot of the memories are happy. But we're still so new at this.
It's still so early on that it's hard not to get caught up in the
grief," he said.
The parents of the children who died that day talk often about their
struggle to break through the feeling of helplessness. Parent
Together, an effort Sandy Hook Promise launched in November, aims to
show people, regardless of their politics, that gun violence can be
prevented.
"Nobody's pro gun violence. So, it's not like there's two sides to
this," Barden said.
"If we can save another family from going through what we are going
through, then I can feel good about that for the rest of my life,"
Barden said.
HOLIDAY SHARING
When the shooting started last Dec. 14, Roig-DeBellis's class
was seated in a circle, sharing their holiday traditions.
"I got up, I closed the door, I turned the lights off and I turned
to my students and I said: 'We need to get into the bathroom — right
now,'" she said.
The bathroom was not more than 3 by 4 feet, too small to even
hold a sink. Children climbed onto the toilet, behind the toilet.
One perched on the toilet paper dispenser.
"They were hearing exactly what I was hearing. It was extremely
loud. It was extremely scary," she said.
Some 45 minutes later, when the police arrived, Roig-DeBellis would
not let them in. For days after, she was in a daze, unsure if she
was alive or dead.
She ended up taking more than a year off from teaching, and has
devoted that time to Classes4Classes, a charity that facilitates
acts of kindness between groups of students across the country. She
plans to return to teaching this summer.
"What happened that day has nothing to do with being a teacher," she
said.
(Reporting By Edith Honan; editing by Gunna Dickson)
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