Sandy Hook Mom: I 'Know What They Will Endure' for Life

As America grieves for the families of those killed in the Uvalde mass shooting, Nicole Hockley expresses a different kind of grief: a knowing one. Her son Dylan was murdered nearly 10 years ago in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, and she writes that she knows "the unspeakable pain" the parents of the students who were killed are feeling right now. "I also know what they will endure for the rest of their lives." In a piece for USA Today, Hockley writes that she's heading to the Texas town to help in whatever way she can. "I will try to talk [the families and community] through the unimaginable darkness of this moment. And let them know that while it will cast shadows over the rest of their lives, even in the shadows, there can be hope."

For the Sandy Hook families, the hope manifests as an effort to work to stop gun violence from claiming more children's lives. "The only thing that keeps me going is knowing that our country can move forward and take action if we have the courage and resolve to do so," Hockley writes. Erica Leslie Lafferty, whose mother was killed at Sandy Hook, also spoke of the shadows, per the Guardian: "These families in that community are walking into hell and there is definitely a network of people out there who have lived it, who are stepping up to support them ... But it's not going to just go away. Not for the families, not for the community. It's life-changing. It's devastating. It's traumatizing, and every single time it happens, it brings it back like it was yesterday.”

Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was killed in the Parkland school shooting, spoke to the Uvalde families on MSNBC Tuesday night: "You're going to go through pain. It's not right, and it shouldn't be. But I am here for you, and others will be here for you. You will be OK. You will find a path forward. But for the next bunch of days and weeks you have to get through this, this horror. Because people failed ... they f---ing failed our kids again." Nelba Marquez-Greene, whose daughter Ana Grace was killed at Sandy Hook, spoke about gun reform on CBS Mornings: "Action is faith. Action is love." (More Uvalde mass shooting stories.)