On living in Sandy Hook, a reflection of thought

On living in Sandy Hook, a reflection of thought

It's cold. The sun is gently shining and reflecting off some chunks of snow still left on the tree limb outside the window where I'm sitting.  I have just pulled myself away from facebook.  There are link after links of touching videos, articles, stories, and pictures of the lives so violently taken from our little town.  Our collective focus is reaching out once again to unite us in thought and bring us together so that mentally we don't have to face our fears and grief by ourselves.  There was a giant crack in the universe on December 14, 2012.   Evil came in through the crack, smashing in the glass and destroying love.   Little people, and loving adults taken in merely minutes and seconds.  Leaving behind a feeling of hopeless helplessness. as we just pushed ourselves though day after day.  The winter ended, the Spring came, the sun brought a beautiful spring and summer and hopelessness had transcended into helping hopefulness as the true human spirit emerged and our community embraced the concept of honoring those lost by being kind, choosing love, and paying it forward.

That is Mac the Monkey, he came to visit

We, my husband and three children,  live but a few miles from Sandy Hook School, where two of my children attended for their elementary years.  We live less than a mile from the home of the young man who went crazy with evil intent and drove to that school never to come out alive.  We see the balloons on street signs, sadly blowing back and forth in the wind reminding us of a special child's birthday.  We drive by the homes of the heart broken families every single day, multiple times, and always think of them.  Always. Every time.  We attend church together, we pray together.  Siblings go to school together.  We go to the Big Y and see one of the Mom's doing her shopping get stopped by a friend, and given a hug.  And we keep going about our daily business.  But sometimes you find yourself reminded, and it is as if we are tied to this place by both our grief and our love for each other.

Our children have been altered forever as they cross the the next channel to the other side of their new grade, new class, new friends, and on to college.  It can be really hard to explain the sick knotted lump we feel each time we drive through the center of  Sandy Hook, because sometimes it just has no descriptive definition using words.  It just is.

Living here, as we have since 1994, has been a blessing.  Two of our three children have had a life enriched with community, great educators, music, theatre,  spiritual love, sports, security, and great friends.  So many happy child hood memories.  And now, their elementary school has become somewhat of an American Horror Story location.  Sucking away those memories and replacing them with visual images of brutality and bullets.  We try to return to the happy memories, but as humans, doing that still breaks our hearts.  They walked those halls, went to those classes, knew that school as their comforting home for all of those days of their childhood.

Living here we try to grab hold of that life line which is hope.  We encourage each other with warmth and kindness.  We turn away respectively and give people their privacy to grieve and to experience what they need to experience as human beings.  We know each and every name of the 26 lives lost that day, and we will never forget those names for the rest of our lives.

For me, living here has been a road of ups and downs.  Prior to 12/14 our neighbor tragically lost their son on 11/8/08,  and grief was already living on Bennetts Bridge Road.  Prior to that, about 28 years ago, my direct neighbor Betty lost her sweet 3 year old daughter Bridget, struck and killed by a car on Bennetts Bridge Road.  Grief already lives here. And as a very active member of the Special Needs community and support groups, I can not even tell you how many children we have had to say goodbye to who have the same condition as Daniel, or who are sick with other conditions.

Living here,  there is life with Daniel.  The one of my two children who never attended Sandy Hook School because he was too medically fragile to be mainstreamed.  Daniel always came with me though, and many families remember me always trying to get Daniel's wheelchair into a classroom where an event was taking place.  Daniel was always so happy to be there.  Sarah and Thomas were always the kid "with the brother in the wheelchair".

In my home, especially in the winter time, I feel a great urge to let melancholy and depression just sink in like a cold avalanche of snow.  And yet, I too grab onto the life line.  Daniel is now 16 years old.  Our life is far from normal. I'm under tremendous pressure every day.  I worry about seizures and respiratory arrest especially when he is at school and I am not there.  Daniel is a magical child, who has captured the hearts of so many Newtown children and adults.



And it spread to the entire world when we had a card shower for him, and he received almost 900 birthday cards, and gifts.   Yes, I wrote 900.

Daniel does not have the same emotional connection to 12/14 that so many other children do.  He doesn't have the cognitive understanding of what happened that day.  He probably remembers how sick he was last December 14th, but really he is just as simple as knowing what makes him happy, and what fascinates him.  Perhaps I underestimate him.  But I like to believe that he is a protected spirit bringing love and light into our world.  He doesn't have to feel many of the complicated emotions and fears that the rest of us do, and that is not a bad thing really.

Growing up in Newtown, CT

Living here in Sandy Hook, CT, tucked away in our house on Bennetts Bridge Road, we are doing what everyone else is doing. Continuing to proceed.  However, we have new priorities in our hearts, or stronger focus in our minds, of being kind to others.  It is critical in the human spirit to stay happy by helping others, by paying it forward.  I believe that God, and the spirit of God, works through us, through our relationship with the living God, to spread His love and good works.  Opening your heart to let kindness in, allows that space and light for God to fill you with his love.   And we can do this, while we grieve.  We can continue on.
Living here in Sandy Hook, CT can feel like an anomoly at times.  Ironically a mix of very different people on very different paths.   Some people are extremely wealthy and still maintaining a life that is self focused, but others have changed and are realizing that their very neighbors may need help.  The stories of kindness on Facebook, are amazing.  People are starting to pay attention to helping their neighbors.  To slowing down and really "seeing" who we live with.


As a Mom, living here, in this house, struggling to stay on top of the needs of a very fragile son, I often wish that there was more I could do for others.  I can hardly pay my mortgage, and Christmas is a time of stress and anxiety.  But 900 birthday cards???   Obviously my son, without even trying, has brought something special to so many people.   I can share his love, I can let people know how much the Special Needs community needs help.  Many families are very proud, but they are struggling.  And if people could just realize the magic, and life changing force that a child like Daniel and so many others have, they would be touched and changed forever.

We are here.  In this house.  With this boy. Who is non verbal. In a wheelchair.  And very fragile. He is finally doing well in a December (the past two have been in the hospital) So if that is the Christmas gift this year, we will take it. It's cold. We can't go out with him. His van doesn't drive well in snow and he can't tolerate the cold temperature.  What can I do?  Just think about the little drummer boy, and it will come to you.

What is it like to live here in Sandy Hook, CT?  Its beautiful.  Simply beautiful.  Evil will never win here.  Love wins.  We really do choose love.  I hope you will too, where ever you live.

Julie Hasselberger

12/12/13

Here on Bennetts Bridge Road,Sandy Hook, CT where "raising Daniel Hasselberger" comes from..... please read

It is part of things.  You know, history.  Things that happen.  And as much as we become soldiers of resolving to choose love, and to be kind, history can not be changed.  Each moment, becomes history.  We are creatures, who for the most part, want to live a life of love.  A life where we fulfill whatever our interests are, and support whatever our goals are.  And then really bad things happen.

Here, on Bennetts Bridge Road in the small town of Sandy Hook, CT we had just moved across town and into this house when September 11, happened. My youngest was only 6 months old.  It was such a profoundly horrific thing that all life just stopped as we knew it.  People, being people, got back out there and back to their lives.  But I'm sure there are many, directly affected, who are never ever going to face the day in any way remotely close to how it was on September 10, 2001.  I remember so many shocking and strange memories and feelings from that day.  But I didn't see the smoke, hear the crashing of the planes, see bodies falling from the buildings, feel the earth shake as the towers fell, or stand for weeks with a lit candle praying for a lost loved one.  

On November 8, 2008, a beautiful young man, at the tender age of 13 was taken from us too suddenly.  A neighbor, a friend, a vibrant and smart young man.  He had ridden the bus with my daughter since we had moved here, and she started first grade.  His passing altered her reality and security, for the rest of her life.  I know that there was so much pain not expressed, but it was not supposed to happen.  A 13 year old boy, sudden and tragic, doesn't die and leave his family.  We miss him.  We think of him.  We pass his family's home every single day.  And I recall shuddering and crying for his Mom.  And I recall that my daughter would never again ride the bus to middle school without him there anymore.  History.  A moment in time that didn't just mark an event, it marked a significant change in the path of a plan for a happy future.  Sandy Hook, CT mourned the loss of this child, but time went by.  He has been remembered, and honored.  And will always be a part of who we are.


But, last December 14, 2012, when Adam Lanza, a neighbor, decided to take his family guns and go on a murderous rampage in a quiet sleepy little town, history became black. Dark. Painful. A black hole of confusion. Wonderful families with plans of great futures, losing their 6 and 7 year olds.  And teachers, just doing their jobs and supporting their own families, became heroes, and loss lives too.  All right here.  All within a few miles of where I sit and write about "Raising Daniel Hasselberger".   As I drive down my road now, I pass the home of our friend who passed in 2008, and I pass the homes of 4 or 5 neighbors who buried a child less than a year ago.  And as much as we pull together our healing resolve, trust me, this is an incredible town, it still hurts us.  We all remember where we were that morning, what we were doing, where we were driving.  There is always a sickish feeling when I pass the Sandy Hook fire department and the road that lead to that school.  Because my kids went there.  And it was a happy wonderful place for them.  And its now a black, solemn place, hallowed ground.  Evil walked there.  And no one else wants to.

I was tending to Daniel then, who was very ill and in the hospital.  Now, he is quite well.  And we are so pleased with how much better he is as we face this Fall.

But history, even though it is the past, pulls at our hearts when we least expect it to.  Sandy Hook, CT sometimes feels like just another town, roads I pass to get to the bank, gas station, grocery store, schools...  And other days, there are reminders that you see in the form of remembrance stickers and magnets on the back on almost all cars.  Green.  Green and white for Sandy Hook.   It will never be the same here.  How could it ever.  Nor should it ever.  History changed the road.  But we still live here.

And in my house on Bennetts Bridge Road I raised my daughter, and did my best to give her as much as I possibly could.  Even though we struggle and scrape, her future was so very important to me, to get her out of this town, and somewhere else with new history to make and face.  And in my house on Bennetts Bridge Road, I am watching this young man named Thomas, emerge.  He is brilliant at music, bass instruments likes Baritone sax and Trombone.  Great kids, a part of the flow of the school system, participating in so many activities, mostly related to music and the arts.   And also in this house, we are raising Daniel.  Daniel who will never speak words, who will never express to us how life is affecting him.  He just watches.  His eyes absorb. His ears hear. His hands feel.  And I admire his never ending smiles that come at the times when you think he really should not be smiling now.  All of those surgeries, all of those physical and mental impairments, all of those seizures, and spasms, and cramps, and pains.  And he laughs like he has just heard the best joke ever, every day.

Does history change a child like Daniel?  I don't know how much he is mentally aware of bad things. But I do know that he senses my physiological changes.  He participated in activities designed to help the kids heal and persevere.  He met the Giants!!!  Did he really know who they were?  Maybe.  But they treated him like a king and it made me feel included that day.   Daniel wakes up to the same routine, pretty much every day.  And most of his day is spent monitoring his physical status.   I never knew if he understood fully the change to our community, but I do know that the dogs who came into his room significantly affected him.  There were a few who like him particiularly alot.     And next thing we know, to make a long story shortened, a beautiful dog was donated for him from Ohio.   History made that happen.  Without 12/14 we would not have had dogs in school.  Without Dogs, we wouldn't have seen how much a service dog would change his life, and now that we have Henry.  Well, he is just this beam of joy and intelligence.  He has a calming effect on all of us.   Because raising Daniel in the sense of surviving financially is stressful. Painful. and just plain crappy sometimes.   Henry, has lightened the load, except for the vet bills and the expensive dog food.

History.  Loss.  Pain.  Shock.  Grief.  The sun comes up, the sun goes down.  We who have faith believe that God is holding us up, somehow, as we say good bye.  Like we did to our friend Ryan last week.  Daniel's only friend in school.  So soon. Too soon.  And I am no longer questioning if Daniel is mentally aware when changes happen, I am certain that he is aware.  He has missed Ryan so much.  And the energy from that wonderful boy is now in another form.

So here, on our road, on Bennetts Bridge Road, in Sandy Hook, CT we have experienced 9/11/01,  me being terminated because I had a disabled son, financial hardship in great form, countless surgeries for Daniel, seizures, pneumonias, many late night 911 calls, the loss of dear dear Brennan, the loss of my brother in spirit, Ed Muratti, more sickness and exhausting sleep deprivation, and December 14 of last year.  And now, most recently, the loss of our friend Ryan, also a Newtown student now in Heaven.

So we release an orange balloon into the sky.  We see the balloons marking special birthdays.  We cry.  We try to be joyful.  It's really pretty damn fucking confusing for me, most of the time.   I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm inspirational, I need help, and I do not have a choice.   I must get up.  I must change that diaper and smile at the sunshine filled boy's face.  And carry on.   Because I believe that if we do not live our life with JOY then evil wins.

And joy, is a part of history too.  Far more than we give it credit for.   That is why I do what I do. I am a Mom, with a goal of happiness for the future of my family.  I know its a big pipe dream to think we will ever rise above the clog of beaurocracy and neediness, but as long as I see that smile it puts wood on my fire.

How do you perceive history.  Sandy Hook, CT has become somewhat of an anomoly.  And I end this by saying that losing a child or a close family member is horrible.  And the pain still feels fresh forever, and prayers are needed.  For those who are quietly suffering from what one evil moment in time did to shatter their lives.