“Twelve fourteen.” These numbers hold as heavy a meaning for the Newtown families as “nine eleven” holds for others. A day full of unanticipated tragedy, heartbreak, and destruction. Twenty-six lives were taken and a community was left to grieve and try to understand what had happened.
The morning of December 14, 2012 was sunny and brisk, though the atmosphere was full of excitement and anticipation as Christmas and the New Year grew closer. Parents sent their children off to school, waving to them from the back of the bus before heading home or off to work. The morning seemed normal—until it suddenly wasn’t. Around 9:30 a.m., a gunman unexpectedly entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticute and opened fire of his military grade assault rifle, killing twenty first graders and six faculty members. From those moments forward, time seemed to move in slow motion. People were silent, overwhelmed with feelings of anger, confusion, and pure shock.
Time did, however, continue to move forward. Community members of this small town, staff, students, and even family members of the victims began to heal in a world that was inevitably different before that morning.
Award-winning director Kim A. Snyder captures the heartbreak of that December day and the repair that followed in her documentary titled Newtown. Snyder follows the Barden, Hockley, and Wheeler families, as well as other survivors and community members in their journey through grief and desperately searching to find a purpose behind it all. While this film is largely centered around the sorrows and recovery, it also provides a sense of closure. So many questions about that day will remain forever unanswered, summed up best through the tearful eyes of a first responder on the scene who says, “I don’t think that any of us that were in there feel that anybody needs to know graphically what occurred in there. Emotionally, I think the world needs to know to understand it.” For this reason, no graphic images were shown, but raw tears, painful silence, and looks of confusion and anger were enough to answer them all.
Among the tears, though, there was a lightness. While this was a story of a traumatizing event, it was also a celebration of life. As the Barden, Hockley, and Wheeler families develop into activists against gun laws and safety and security, a new, stronger community emerges from the ashes. It’s truly beautiful and breathtaking to witness. This brings with it a sense of clarity and a great level of motivation for anyone who felt the greatest or even the smallest residual effects of that day. It is not a day that should evoke fear, rather it is an event that should boost activism for what is right and just and need to express love for others as often as possible.
The film premiered just under four years after the event and came when the chaos had begun to lessen and clarity may be found. “In every tragedy, there is chaos,” says Ian Wheeler, father of victim Ben Wheeler, “I previously found a beauty in the chaos. The challenge now is to find that beauty again.” It’s a message that can teach us all. Newtown honors those lost with a beautiful tribute to their lives, no matter how short. Among tears, laughter, and celebration of the time they had on this earth, this film can greatly assist in the restoration of a broken-hearted community.
In remembrance of “twelve fourteen,” and the twenty-six souls that have risen above the horrors of Sandy Hook.