As Newtown High School graduates arrived on an outdoor stage in Sandy Hook, Conn., Wednesday afternoon, shaking hands and receiving diplomas, 20 of their classmates were missing.
For the dozens of seniors who also attended Sandy Hook Elementary School, those classmates had been missing for more than 11 years. They were in first grade on December 14, 2012, when a gunman attacked their school in one of the worst mass shootings in US history. Twenty students — ages 6 and 7 — and six faculty members were shot and killed.
Seniors attached green ribbons that read “choose love” and “forever in our hearts” to their blue and white graduation gowns. They sat in folding chairs on their school’s football field and listened as their principal read the 20 names of prospective graduates.
“Their names should have been read that day and the fact that they weren’t there is awful,” said Matt Holden, 17, who survived the Sandy Hook shooting. “He should have been there.”
Nicole Hockley, whose son Dylan was 6 when he was killed in the shooting, said the high school has been kind to the victims’ families, offering them memories in the yearbook and inviting them to Wednesday’s ceremony, which she decided not to attend.
She said in an interview that she didn’t want to bring anyone down as they prepared for the excitement of their graduation.
“It’s a strange day, to be honest, because I’m so happy for all the kids who are graduating,” Ms Hockley said.
“But obviously at the same time, it tugs at my heartstrings,” she said. “I wish Dylan and all the other kids killed at Sandy Hook were there today too.”
Newtown has changed a lot since the shooting, according to Mr. Robert Weiss, a Roman Catholic priest who was the first member of the clergy to arrive at the scene of the shooting. New families have moved into town. The new buildings have gone up.
But for those who lived there at the time, Monsignor Weiss said, it remains a hidden bond. To this day, he’ll walk into a Starbucks and order a coffee, only to find that someone else paid for it, thanking him for helping the town heal.
Monsignor Weiss accompanied the police to each victim’s home to inform the families. When he got home at 2 a.m., he turned on his TV, hoping to catch a Christmas movie to help him sleep. Instead, he landed on “Carousel” and heard the song “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”
That’s when he realized, he said, that the people of Newtown would need to rely on each other to survive.
“I think it’s beautiful how so many of those who were really at ground zero pulled themselves together and were a real force for each other,” she said.
Changed or not, this week was a tough one for Newtown. News trucks and television cameras lined Main Street, rekindling memories of that December.
Mark Burden, who lost his son Daniel, 7, in the shooting, said the emotional weight of graduation day had left him speechless.
As the years passed, with each passing milestone, he wondered what his son would be like now, what he would do, what would lie ahead. Graduation “rounds all of that out and puts a stop to it,” he said.
“My heart goes out to that class who were there and survived this horrible atrocity and they have to live with that for the rest of their lives,” said Mr Barden, who also declined to attend the ceremony.
“There’s a certain element of stepping out of the safety of your high school environment and your city ecosystem,” he said. “And so they have this normal stress to deal with, plus all this additional life experience that’s been thrown at them.”
Mr Holden said three scenes still stood out to him from the day of the shooting.
He remembers encountering a police officer with his gun drawn. He remembers seeing his mother outside the school, crying uncontrollably. And she remembers lining up by class at the firehouse, which became the reunion center, and realizing that one class was missing the majority of its students.
Later that afternoon, Mr. Holden said, his parents took him for a walk and tried to explain what had happened. The reality wouldn’t sink in for years, he said, but he must have figured it out to some degree, because he collected a rock for each of the friends his parents said he’d never see again.
Those rocks are still in his backyard, where his family has a makeshift memorial for the shooting victims.
This week, in keeping with town tradition, Newtown High School graduates returned to their respective elementary schools for a visit. For Mr. Holden, it was his first time visiting the new Sandy Hook campus, which has been rebuilt after the building where the shooting took place was demolished.
He and the other survivors walked through the halls, berating the students.
“I really enjoyed it,” he said. “Knowing that they had a great experience and seeing the smiles on their faces was really awesome.”
But seeing how young they were reminded him of how young he was when the shooting took place. He realized that nothing could have prepared him for what happened.
When a gunman opened fire at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022, killing 19 fourth-graders and two teachers, the ripples hit Newtown hard, Monsignor Weiss said.
It was so similar to what had happened at Sandy Hook that people had a hard time processing it, even with the constant drumbeat of mass shootings in the United States.
“People are becoming a little bit immune to it, which is horrible to say, because it’s so common now,” Monsignor Weiss said. “Grocery stores, malls, movie theaters, churches, you know, it’s become a part of our lives.”
Mr. Holden will attend college in the fall in Washington, where he plans to major in political science. She hopes to enter politics and fight for gun control.
“After Sandy Hook, there should have been change, and while there may have been some change, it was by no means enough,” he said. “The way I see it now, if I want that change to happen, the best way to make it happen is to get out there and do it myself.”
While Mr Holden said his graduation day was celebratory overall, there were somber notes. After high school principal Kimberly Longobucco read the name of each child who had died in the shooting, a moment of silence was observed.
“We remember them for their bravery, their kindness and their spirit,” Dr. Longobucco said. “Let us try to honor them today and every day.”
It took her nearly two minutes to read the names—names that the surviving graduates promised to remember and that inspired their next steps.
“I think it’s a really beautiful way to remember what was lost and what should be here,” Ms Hockley said. “These children are carrying my son and the others with them.”
Neil Vigdor contributed to the report.
