Sandy Hook mom and dad speak out in rare interview: 'You don’t heal from grief'

It was five years ago that a young man invaded Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and shot and killed 20 young children and six staff members, a tragedy that indelibly scarred that small city and lives on in the collective national memory. But school shootings didn’t begin, or end, with Sandy Hook. Yahoo News looks at the aftermath of four of these tragedies and the lives they changed. In this story, we look at how the parents of a girl killed in Newtown are coping with their loss. In other stories, we examine how 20 years on, Jonesboro, Ark., is still traumatized by an attack carried out by two middle-school boys — and how survivors deal with the knowledge that the killers are now grown men and free from prison; and at the lessons from Sandy Hook that may have helped save lives at a California school just last month. 

Five years ago this week, the lives of JoAnn and Joel Bacon were forever altered with the death of their daughter, Charlotte — an intelligent, energetic 6-year-old who loved dogs and was “independent, bold, and adventurous,” says her mom. She was among the 20 children shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. And while life has gone on for the bereaved couple and their 15-year-old son, Guy — particularly through the energy they channel into their Charlotte Helen Bacon Foundation, which champions causes from comfort dogs to grief support — they’ve also spent these years struggling with the reality of their personal anguish and grief. And that’s something many people prefer not to acknowledge, says JoAnn.

“I dislike it when people bypass my pain only to point out all my accomplishments since Charlotte’s death,” she tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “It is the triumph-over-tragedy narrative that is appealing and most comfortable for others, but I have worked hard with my grief, and I have scars. I do not want them glossed over. I do not see it as my responsibility to soothe and comfort others by hiding the real.”

This week, as Yahoo marks the fifth anniversary of the Dec. 14 rampage in Newtown, JoAnn and Joel reveal “the real,” giving voice to what they feel have been some of the most unsung truths about the Sandy Hook tragedy and the fractured families in its wake.

It is a personal tragedy first and foremost, and a collective tragedy second.

“I think there’s a need for us to know that people remember our loved ones, and not just as a group, like, ‘Remember Newtown,’ or ‘Remember the 20 children,’ or ‘Remember the 6 educators,’ kind of all lumped together,” says JoAnn. “They were individuals, and they each had something special about them, and I feel that gets lost in these mass tragedies. And that makes me really sad.”

Often, she adds, “there’s more attention on the event, or the murderer, or on the investigation and what happened to the school. But no one really wants to focus on the individual. And as a parent, I want to know that people actively remember.” Further, she says, as various community recovery efforts, advocacy organizations, or memorial sites have sprung up in response to the shooting. “Many of these decisions have created considerable pain for my family, sometimes leaving us feeling like our loss is being exploited for a particular agenda,” she says. “It has required a lot of vigilance to have our voice heard.”