If I Don’t Make It, I Love You

GUN VIOLENCE NEVER TAKES A DAY OFF

By Hollye Dexter

Having experienced gun violence in her own family, Hollye is a dedicated activist for gun reform, using her voice and her writing to advocate for change. She has worked for Women Against Gun Violence, Everytown for Gun Safety, and the No Notoriety campaign.

I was fourteen years old that summer morning when I woke to my mother’s screams. I ran to the living room to find my seven-year-old brother Christopher covered in blood. He’d just been shot in the head by a neighborhood teen playing with his dad’s gun.

Christopher was in first grade. He was a skinny, towheaded boy missing his front teeth. I held him as my mother tore through stop signs and red lights to the hospital.

“Please don’t let me die,” he said before losing consciousness.

His eyes fluttered and rolled back as his little body twitched.

“Drive faster,” I screamed at my mother. His blood stained my arms.

My brother survived, but the life meant for him was taken with one bullet. With brain surgery and a year of physical therapy, Christopher learned how to use a fork and walk without dragging his leg, talk without slurring, write with his left hand to compensate for loss of motor skills on his right side. He attended school wearing a helmet.

As an adult, Christopher lives with epilepsy and all the effects that come with traumatic brain injury and PTSD: emotional outbursts, rages, depression, self-medicating. Lead poisoning. The bullet remains in his brain.

On the morning of December 14, 2012, three decades after my brother’s shooting, the Sandy Hook massacre unveiled repressed memories, and I relived Christopher’s shooting in vivid detail. I’m one of the unfortunate people who knows what a first-grader who’s been shot looks like. I watched the news with that horrific image in my mind, and in that moment, I became an activist.

Since then, I have worked as a writer, speaker, communications director, and social media manager for several national gun violence prevention organizations. My job requires me to be informed up to the minute of any breaking gun violence story.

EACH DAY AT 7 A.M., I BEGIN:

I Google “Gun violence,” “shooting victim,” “mass shooting,” “domestic violence shooting,” “accidental shooting.”

Over coffee, I research the stories:

Where did the shooter get the gun?

What are the gun laws in the state where the shooting occurred, and is there a law on the books that could have prevented it?

I type out my daily reporting on child shootings: family murder-suicides, police shootings of unarmed black men, neighborhood drive-bys where children are shot at their breakfast tables.

Then there are the god-awful days of school and mass shootings. The days that we activists get on our national conference calls to rally and plan an action, and later, retreat to our private Facebook groups where we grieve, rant and fall apart, prop each other up again. Because this is my paid job, I don’t have the option to “just take a break from it” or “get off social media for a few days” as my friends suggest.

In 2013, most Americans thought Sandy Hook and the Aurora theater shooting were a “fluke.” I tried to organize meetings and rallies in Los Angeles and was hard-pressed to get thirty people to show up. Politicians wouldn’t dare utter the word “gun violence.” President Obama didn’t mention it in his State of the Union address. Legislators ignored and brushed past Sandy Hook parents in the halls of Congress, crying and pleading for expanded background checks, which the GOP Congress members cruelly voted against. And so we, a small scrappy group of pissed-off women, were saddled with a full-time occupation: protesting NRA conventions, marching in D.C., rallying at city halls, boycotting businesses, screaming at the top of our lungs to be heard twenty-four hours a day. No days off. No benefits.

I tried to take time off. For instance, in the summer of 2015, I was in a seaside resort celebrating my wedding anniversary, drinking coffee in my fluffy white robe on the deck of our hotel room, when an alert popped up on my phone. Television reporter Alison Parker and her cameraman Adam Ward had just been shot dead on live television. My husband, Troy, got the alert, too. He looked at me and said, “It’s okay. I know you have to work. I’ll go get us some breakfast.”

And then there was the Sunday when I had a big family event, but was woken at 6:00 a.m. by a call from my activist friend, Suzanne. She was crying.

“Forty-nine people,” she said. “He shot them all dead in a nightclub.”

We started making calls and planned a #LoveToOrlando vigil in West Hollywood that night. We rallied activists, religious leaders, musician, and press, who showed up with our last-minute notice. Instead of family day, my husband and children held signs and candles on Sunset Blvd., talked to press, hugged and cried with gay men now fearing for their lives.

But it was the day of the 2015 San Bernardino mass shooting that broke me. I was walking down the stairs in my house to tell Troy what happened, and my legs collapsed beneath me. He found me in the stairwell, sobbing uncontrollably, unable to move. The mass accumulation of grief had paralyzed me. I realized, then, that no matter how strong I thought I was, I couldn’t inundate myself with tales of grief, injustice, and violence at 7:00 a.m. every day and still be sane. So I took weekends off, joined a meditation group, and made yoga a priority. I took walks during my lunch break rather than working through lunch, turned my phone off in the evenings. I tried to find balance, and continued the work.

When I got the alert about the Valentine’s Day massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, there were scant details. They weren’t yet reporting fatalities in the news alerts, but I felt it in my bones.

“I have a bad feeling about this one,” I told Troy.

Sadly, I was right. But that same night, something else happened: the Parkland kids rose up. They were filled with righteous anger at the adults in positions of power who failed them. There was a grim determination in their words as they vowed they’d fight, and above all, that their generation would vote. Suddenly, legislators sat up and took notice. An empowered youth movement that votes is a force to be reckoned with, and I sensed a tipping point in our movement. But I know what it is to carry the weight of this movement, and now that the weight has shifted, I worry it’s too heavy for their shoulders.

As I write this, we are days away from the horrific anti-Semitic shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. I’m on the phone, writing reports, and organizing calls to action. And I’m sure that by the time this book is published, there will be another shooting, another #hashtag on Twitter, another violent chapter in American History. I will weep, break, feel hopeless. But after a few days I’ll get back up and work.

GUN VIOLENCE NEVER TAKES A DAY OFF.

A TREE BRANCH FALLS
AND AN ACTIVIST RISES

By Jennifer Ostrega

Jennifer Ostrega is a Sandy Hook Promise Leader and Founder of Kind Hearts Theater.

One morning in December 2012, shortly after my husband and I moved to the suburbs, I was watching my 4-year old perform with his classmates in his school pageant. What I could not know—and what I later could not comprehend—was that only a few miles away, in a small community called Newtown, Connecticut, children were being torn from this world and their dear parents. My husband and I wept the entire weekend, feeling the loss of those parents as if it were our own, and we asked ourselves what can we do?

The road to my activism started when on June 30th, 2015, a tree branch fell from the sky onto my head while I was typing grades for my college students into my laptop at the end of summer session. I was immediately instructed to rest my brain and abstain from all screen use. Doctor’s orders gave me permission to avoid the nonstop flow of bad news I was accustomed to consuming online.

A few days earlier, the nurse at my son’s school phoned me at work to report that my kindergartner’s head was bleeding; a bully had admitted to pushing him into a bus window. I had already been wrestling with the lack of control that I had to protect him, but I guess that’s just what it was to be a mother. Kiss your kid goodbye in the morning and hope for the best. But now I had been injured by another event beyond my control—leaving me with a growing sense of vulnerability living in a world that could be very cruel and indiscriminate. There had to be something I could do.

After my concussion had healed, I welcomed screens back into my life again, gradually. But the screens I watched brought news of more school shootings. I Googled “Sandy Hook parents.” How were they able to go on? Finally, a Google that provided a glimmer of hope: Sandy Hook Promise (SHP) decided to create a grassroots operation called Promise Leaders. It was at that time I became a Promise Leader for the amazing, impossibly strong people at Sandy Hook Promise. I realized the incredible connection between all my worlds converging—I would be a mother to only one child, age 6 at the time.

Those twenty first-graders were killed by an adolescent in pain from social isolation, and what could I do to ensure that my kid would be safe? I am grateful for the ability to recover from what could have been a fatal accident and even better, I gradually started to heal my own traumas by healing others. I became active in the organization and signed up to a grassroots initiative that now has trained over 7.5 million youth and adults to create inclusive and safer communities.

Before I knew it, Sandy Hook Promise invited me to run in the New York City Marathon as part of their team, which for me, was a risk. I did not come from a family of runners, and we were not risk-takers. As I trained each day for the marathon, I had the space to think about how I would blaze a trail. I had a lot of things working in my favor. I had my job teaching youth from foreign lands to help themselves amid a confusing environment. I had my history working with children; just before 9/11, I had been a child coach on Sesame Street. I’d studied and performed improv and mastered the ability to create a partnership in seconds that carries the weight of a relationship of twenty years.

And most important of all, I had dissatisfaction. I had an absolute certainty that the world could be better, must be better, and that I could contribute to better our world. So, I started a class called Kind Hearts Theater at an after-school program. It all began with a question: What if I could bring improv skills and a sense of social partnership, generosity and community to kids in schools? Could improvisation reduce violence and mitigate the social isolation this young generation is experiencing so profoundly? Just like the tree branch that had been flagged for removal but was not pruned in time to prevent my injury, so too is the socially isolated student, who has not yet received help and poses a potential threat to others.

First, I worked on pilot programs developing a curriculum that would be easy to teach and adopt to different grade levels. What I quickly observed was that teaching eye contact, agreement, and yes AND had a clear and positive impact on the kids I was teaching.

With the NY Marathon date approaching, I reached out to my local school district about the free programming available to them when it wasn’t popular to speak about gun violence, in those months before Parkland. Today, over 6,300 others like me have become volunteer Promise Leaders. I’ve worked in schools to help spread their message, hoping to mend the underlying circumstances and social isolation that lead to school violence. Sandy Hook Promise has programs like “Start With Hello,” that encourage interaction, listening, and support to stop violence before it can ever take root, and “Say Something,” which enlists our young people in recognizing and reporting at-risk behavior, catching it at a level where adults sometimes can’t see. To date, these programs have helped avert several school shooting plots and threats, as well as teen suicides and other acts of violence. This work has such potential to grow and recently, there has been interest from many more school districts. With each new success, we can spread to another school, and with each school we add, we carry the banners for “Say Something” and “Start With Hello.” Just like 70s slogans like “Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute” or “Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires,” we can enshrine these steps to end violence and promote fellowship as common knowledge. Our Common Core standards teach math, science, language arts, and critical thinking, but what if one of our national Common Core standards included social emotional curriculum with a learning outcome based in empathy? If children grew up with this staple, then imagine how that would impact the playing field in a positive way within our corporate structure and our schools and communities.

This requires a shift in our thinking. It is something more that I do in addition to my job as a teacher. I push myself, because I believe our kids deserve something better. And I know, I can’t be comfortable with how things are currently. When video games that simulate school shootings are making money, I’m not willing to be dissatisfied. When anti-bullying programs only last a week, or a day, and we turn on the news and there’s yet another mass shooting, it’s time for us to realize that what is necessary is to change the fabric of our school culture. What keeps me persisting to be a Promise Leader is that social emotional skills should be ingrained into our heads in the same way we recite the pledge of allegiance every morning.

When I first introduced the Sandy Hook Promise programming in my community, several administrators really understood and supported the idea. These administrators understand that closing the gap of social isolation isn’t a one-day activity or wearing a special shirt. It’s a mind-set, and it must be taught 180 days of the school year. So, year after year, I keep trying until we all can teach all our children to

“Start with Hello.”

AFTER TRAGEDY, GIVE BACK

By Charlene Mokos Hoverter

Charlene Mokos Hoverter is a former middle school teacher and principal of a Catholic Grammar School. Presently, she’s a volunteer for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and is a Survivor Membership Lead and Fellow for Everytown for Gun Safety.

I’ve never been involved in a school shooting. Nor have my children. Nor have my grandchildren. And here I’m tempted to include the word “yet.” Because, I fear, this is a real possibility. Because I know what it is like to be a survivor of gun violence.

Let me share a bit about me family.

We were seven children. My parents had unusual nicknames by which they were always called. Pickles for my Mom for the obvious reason of liking pickles as a young girl. My Dad was Bing. He looked like Bing Crosby and had a beautiful singing voice. Some of my most endearing memories are of my dad and his sister harmonizing to “Heart of My Heart.” While my parents were children of the Depression who dropped out of high school, they were determined we would receive the education denied to them. And so we did. Blue-collar folks with a stay-at-home mom when a stay-at-home mom was the norm, we didn’t have extra money. But somehow, through hard work, scholarships, and plain ol’ grit we all made it through education beyond high school.

Diane, my oldest sister and firstborn in my family, was a nurse who held a master’s degree in midwifery. She was in charge of the delivery unit in Cook County Hospital in Chicago, our hometown. Diane assisted the doctors, mentored the new nurses, and loved the little babies. A mother of four girls, Diane was able to take a few days away in June of 1986, specifically to plan out parents’ upcoming fiftieth wedding anniversary. We went to the beach, had ice cream on the boardwalk, and did all those shore activities we locals take for granted. And we came up with a plan for the party. Hall, music, food, drinks, family and friends, and lots of fun.

Diane never attended that anniversary festivity. On the early morning of July 19, 1986, she stopped off at her church on her way to work, as was her habit. On that day she was apparently accosted as she exited her car and was shot in the head.

Later that morning, the police came to the door of our home where my youngest sister was home. Melanie had to look at a picture and identify her sister, Diane, who had a bullet through her head. Then she had to call all of her brothers and sisters with the news that one of us had been murdered.

My parents were traveling in the West and had spent the night of July 18 in Estes Park, Colorado. The morning of July 19 they were heading to my sister’s home in Nebraska. In those pre-cell-phone, my sister, Linda, waited all day knowing she had to impart the worst possible news to her mother and father. I don’t know how she did it.

I had just arrived in New Orleans for a conference when the desk attendant told me to call Melanie.

“Diane was in an attempted robbery this morning. She was shot and she didn’t make it,” said Melanie through the phone.

“What?! What?! Are you telling me my sister is dead?” I yelled back.

My mother and Diane’s former husband had to go to the morgue to identify Diane’s body. My mom returned with Diane’s glasses, thick with her blood, and asked my brother and me to clean them. How could I have her glasses in my hand but not have my sister? Why wasn’t she here? And the recurring thought: I never got to say goodbye. I love you.

The news carried the story of her murder. We watched as Diane was carried away on a stretcher, as her leg slipped off and dangled, wearing the clunky sandals she loved.

Prior to Diane’s murder, I had seen my mother cry twice. Now I feared she would never stop. And my dad? The years passed, but my dad never sang again.

During that intense grieving time, I was outraged at the lack of outrage over the killing of Diane. This was not a normal death by illness or old age. This was not an accident. This was an intentional killing that took away the mother of four young girls, the daughter of hardworking parents, the aunt to multiple nieces and nephews, the beloved sister of six siblings, the good friend of many many people. We should be outraged. We should be outraged at every single one of the ninety-six deaths by gun that occur daily here in the United States. We should be outraged that our children are not safe in school. That we are not safe in church, in the mall, in the office, in a concert hall.

Diane never saw her girls get married. She never held a grandchild in her arms. Because in an instant someone with a gun shot her in the head.

As the years have passed, the most intense pain has lessened. My great anger diminished, but not my outrage. Somewhere in my thoughts, in the corner of my mind, was the wish to do something so others wouldn’t go through this grief. The thought that I needed to tell people about the anguish that barely lets go. To help make all this STOP!

And then Sandy Hook happened.

And Shannon Watts started Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. And eventually joined forces with Everytown for Gun Safety in America. My Minnesota brother, Bob, found and reached out to Everytown. He and I had spent time talking to each other about trying to do something about this dangerous access to guns in our society; trying to talk through tears as we shared our continued grief and desires. Bob was excited and elated to tell me about Everytown.

So I picked up the phone and became active with these two organizations that now give me strength, compassion, and unconditional support. Through the training I have received by Everytown, I reach out to other survivors in New Jersey. We help them feel empowered to have a voice in the movement to end gun violence. We share a network of survivors who support each other, talk with each other, and help each other. We speak at community events, club meetings, churches, vigils, religious observances. We author letters to the editor and to our congressional representatives and senators, compose editorials, call our legislators, testify to the members of our governing bodies. We motivate people. We change people’s minds. We make changes.

Everytown has given me the path to teach others about this personal heartbreaking experience. Everytown has also allowed me to connect with other survivors who understand my pain, my need. They understand me. The volunteers with Moms Demand Action has given me the joy of seeing others committed to this cause who have been blessed not to have been touched by violence personally but are passionate nonetheless. They are my inspiration and faith in a greater and wiser future.

I do this in Diane’s honor. I hope she knows that thirty-two years after her murder, she is missed daily. And how this is my way of saying,

“Goodbye. I love you.”

MY PROMISE

By Marcel McClinton

Marcel McClinton, seventeen, is a Houston-based gun violence prevention activist, and gun violence survivor of a 2016 shooting outside of his church. Marcel has traveled the country protesting, speaking, and lobbying with a number of different organizations in an effort to urge lawmakers to enact change, and encourage other young people to get involved.

In 2016, a gunman went on a shooting rampage with an AR-15 outside of Memorial Drive United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas, while I was co-teaching Sunday school inside to our many toddlers. We watched him while crouched under a window, listening to the police scanner. No one felt safe, yet we knew we would be the first line of defense if he came into the building. The shooter circled the parking lot, and then walked the neighborhood streets while shooting at police, church members, joggers, and cars. His intent was to kill. He wanted to instill fear, and he did just that.

Because I didn’t get shot, I never considered myself a “survivor,” and I didn’t immediately get involved in activism. I also hadn’t realized how our lawmakers were failing us when it came to gun violence prevention. It wasn’t until the Parkland shooting two years later that I felt empowered enough to demand change alongside hundreds of thousands of other young people. I first co-organized March For Our Lives Houston, and worked with over eighty organizers to hold an event where 15,000 Houstonians marched, chanted, and cried together. I found my voice in this movement after two years of silence. Speaking to the massive crowd was exhilarating, and empowering.

As the weeks went by, I noticed Houston’s energy and interest around the issue dwindle. Our team was working hard to re-energize our city when I received notifications of the Santa Fe High School shooting. I texted my mom immediately and told her we needed to drive the fifty minutes to Santa Fe after school. I didn’t have a plan, and I didn’t know what crisis outreach entailed, but I wanted to be there for anyone who needed someone to hear them, hug them, or tell them they’re loved.

I’ve now protested, spoken, and lobbied around the country. In June, I spent four days each week in Washington, D.C., lobbying for gun violence prevention legislation. I also had the incredible opportunity to meet with lawmakers leading on this issue, as well as some who greatly oppose the work we’re doing. I spent two weeks on Road to Change, a summer cross-country bus tour with students from Parkland, Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Louis. On Road to Change we met with survivors of gun violence, and were tasked with working toward empowering each community we visited. We listened to stories, shared our own, and discussed ways to combat an issue every community faces. Each day was a new experience, and I went home in July feeling emotionally drained, but also reminded about exactly why I do the work that I do.

I never want another person to experience fear, trauma, or death when our lawmakers have the ability to end these senseless tragedies. I serve on Houston’s thirty-seven-member Commission to Prevent Gun Violence, and work with local, state, and federal leaders on ways to best tackle this issue. Our focus before the midterms has been education, outreach, and registering folks to vote. I’ll soon be exploring solutions to gun violence with global leaders, as I’ve been invited to spend four days in November in Costa Rica with former Costa Rican President Óscar Arias and Nobel laureate Jody Williams.

The countless speaking engagements, travel opportunities, and network-building have been amazing, but the root of my work will never change. I’ve missed school, quit football my senior year, and even had to leave my sister’s graduation immediately after she crossed the stage, because gun violence doesn’t take a break from society, and neither can those of us working to prevent it.

Before I sleep at night, I think about the twenty-six toddlers in my Sunday school class for whom I continue this fight. I will remember the sounds of those gunshots outside my church for the rest of my life. I will forever remember the look on the kids’ faces as we hid. I’ve known most of them their whole lives, and I would do anything to protect them. Through my activism, I hope to help create a better America for them to grow up in.

THE ROAD TO HOPE

By Natalie Barden

Natalie Barden was ten years old when a gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed twenty-six people on the morning of December 14, 2012. He murdered six educators and twenty first-graders, including her seven-year-old brother, Daniel. In this essay, Natalie recounts how Daniel’s death shaped the years that followed, and recalls some of her favorite memories of her brother.

It’s been almost six years years since I’ve been able to make a memory with my little brother. My brother Daniel was an old soul. He was four years younger than me, but in my mind we were always the same age. He was constantly holding the door for others and talking to kids who didn’t have many friends. Daniel made sure no one was alone at school. He even helped worms cross the hot pavement so that they wouldn’t cook in the sun. Daniel was full of light and energy. He radiated positivity.

Daniel Barden. Photo courtesy of the Barden family.

December 14th was a Friday, and I was excited because my school, Reed Intermediate, was having a movie night for the fifth-graders. Daniel’s bus for Sandy Hook Elementary School came later than mine, but that morning he woke up early to be with my older brother, James, and me as we got ready for school. I was annoyed by how much Daniel was hugging me, unappreciative of his affection. The morning ticked on, ushering us out the door to school.

Not long after the first bell, we went on lockdown. Assuming it was a drill, we huddled in the corner of the classroom. Quietly, we studied for our scheduled science quiz. But that silence was interrupted by the announcement of an “incident” at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Incident. I assumed there was an animal near the school or an accident in a neighboring town. We stayed in lockdown for the rest of the morning, needing escorts even for the bathroom. By lunchtime, we were allowed to sit in the hall and eat, students swapped theories of what went down. I, too, was wrapped up in the drama of it all, not expecting it to mean anything.

By the time we boarded our buses to go home, helicopters were circling above. The parking was lot filled with news vans and people recorded us as we drove by. Still, none of this meant anything to me. I couldn’t consider the possibility of something terrible happening at Sandy Hook that day, yet for some reason all I could think about was Daniel. I wanted to get home to him and my parents as soon as I could. I imagined myself wrapping him in a big hug.

It’s been almost six years years since I’ve been able to make a memory with my little brother. As a family, we loved to play games, board games, card games, whatever. One of Daniel’s favorites was Sorry. Every time he pulled a Sorry card he would exclaim “Sorrrryy!” And when the card was not usable he would yell “Sorrrryyy!” followed with a quick “can’t use it,” almost as if it was one word. These were his iconic lines in the game, that we all started using every time a Sorry card was pulled. I can still hear the sound of his little voice saying those words, even though its been years since I’ve actually heard them.

That day the bus didn’t go to my usual stop, but to Caroline’s house down the street. There were three families in my neighborhood that were extremely close, the Malins, the LaBancas and my family, the Bardens. That day the kids from all three families went to the Malins. Maggie and Kyle were there, the youngest from the other families. We all seemed to ignore the fact the only people missing from our usual crew were Daniel and my parents. We didn’t acknowledge the weird energy in the air. I found out later the parents in that house already knew what happened, and were trying their best to hold it together for James and me.

I sat in the Malin’s playroom as Maggie, who’d been in the elementary school, recounted what happened. She talked about hearing gunshots. Kyle was quiet. I don’t remember thinking of the story as reality, or connected to Daniel. It was bizarre, a fabricated drama. I don’t know how long we just sat, eating cookies and watching a Christmas movie.

It’s been almost six years years since I’ve been able to make a memory with my little brother. James, Daniel, and I all had our own rooms. James had a bunk bed and I had a single, but for some reason Daniel lucked out and got a queen. So of course, most nights the three of us would all sleep in Daniel’s bed. Some nights my mom or dad would climb in and the four of us would squish together to read a book. When it was finally time to go to bed, we didn’t really sleep. My brothers and I’d stay up talking and joking around. James would tell Daniel and me some bizarre stories about underwater gummy bears or whatever popped into our heads, and we would giggle like crazy until we fell asleep. We’d do this most nights out of the year simply because we loved being together.

Soon, Mrs. Malin announced she would drive us home. The short car ride was silent. I can only imagine now how impossible that day must’ve been for her. Mrs. Malin was like a second mother to all three of us, and she was with James and me when our world changed as we knew it. My parents greeted us at the front door and told us to go upstairs with them. I peered into the kitchen and saw other family members sitting at our table. I followed my parents and brother up the stairs, silently crying. Somewhere deep inside of me, I was acutely aware of what was coming. Inside my parents’ bedroom, my brother and I screamed and cried. Cried and screamed. There was nothing else to do after learning our seven-year-old brother was dead.

In the days and weeks after, there was a constant stream of friends and family in my house. People were always bringing food and cards and presents. I talked and cried with the people I loved the most. Yet, I still was in denial of what happened. I remember sitting in my basement with my friends weirdly making bracelets with Daniel’s name on them, as if he was going to wear them someday. I didn’t want to acknowledge his absence was permanent, and I don’t think I allowed myself to do so until I got to high school. I started to think about Daniel on a daily basis, crying more often than I did.

It’s been almost six years years since I’ve been able to make a memory with my little brother. On weekend mornings, James, Daniel, and I would turn the TV on and all snuggle up on our cozy red couch. Whenever we got bored of Disney or Nickelodeon, or could no longer agree on a show, we would play games and wrestle. When I think of Daniel, I see him in his New York Yankee pajamas, getting ready to tackle James. James would put our big green blanket over his head and be the monster. Sometimes Daniel and I would take turns being the monster and James would get a turn at jumping on the green figure. We’d wrestle until someone was crying and then find a new game. Daniel loved running around and tackling each other so much that we invented a special game called “Wild Daniel” where he’d just go crazy on us, and the three of us would laugh uncontrollably.

Shortly after Daniel’s death, my father and some of the others who lost loved ones that day, founded Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing gun violence. I’ve grown up with Sandy Hook Promise (SHP). I have watched my dad, Mark Barden, become a voice in this movement. The formation of SHP is a blur to me, as it was so soon after Daniel’s death. There’s a picture of me at some meeting in the very beginning of the Promise with my head on my mom’s shoulder looking absolutely destroyed. And that’s how I felt.

As time went on, my family continued to stay involved in the fight for gun violence prevention, and SHP continued to grow. I remember coming off the bus to news vans in my driveway, or coming home from swim practice to eat dinner with cameras surrounding the table. I learned the drill: you introduce yourself and say hello, and then pretend they’re not there so they can capture your “normal life.” I hated being recorded and hated interviews because it reminded me I was different and made the loss of my brother feel all the more real. However, I was never forced into it any of it. I remember my parents giving James and me the choice, while encouraging us to allow the media into our lives because of the powerful voice we had. So, I suffered the cameras and questions because I knew it was my duty to prevent a tragedy like ours from happening to anyone else.

As I grew up, my dad became more and more involved in gun violence prevention. In the earlier days of Sandy Hook Promise, the focus was legislative. My dad was learning every detail of gun violence and how to prevent it. He was writing speeches and visiting with lawmakers. I remember standing next to him the first time he introduced President Obama. In front of my friends, I would pretend to think it was cool, and even brag that my dad was getting to meet these important people. However, I never enjoyed it. I didn’t like the constant conversation in my house. In all honesty, it probably wasn’t that constant, yet every time I heard the word “gun,” I wanted to scream because it made me think of what had happened to Daniel.

It’s been almost six years years since I’ve been able to make a memory with my little brother. We got our Christmas tree the Sunday before my brother died. My family always loved Christmas. There’s a beautiful picture of Daniel putting an ornament on the tree from that night. He didn’t decorate the tree just to decorate it and get it over with. He took his time and savored the moments. In the picture, Daniel’s already put the ornament on the tree, but he’s standing and looking at it appreciatively. When we decorated that tree we all talked and laughed, spending time together as we listened to Christmas music and drank eggnog. I remember making Christmas cookies. The three of us went into the kitchen and started a recipe for sugar cookies. We got every sugary and colorful thing we could find in the pantry and put it all on the counter. We spiced each cookie up with something different. Some had sprinkles, or chocolate. I think I put some Heath bar in there. I remember Daniel really wanting to make a cookie with gummy worms in it, so he did just that. When we brought the cookies into the family room, Daniel picked what he suspected to be his special cookie. We all laughed so hard as Daniel bit into the gross cookie and made a face of disgust.

Daniel decorating the Christmas tree. Photo courtesy of the Barden family.

In 2013, senators Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey co-sponsored a bill that would’ve closed the loophole in the federal background check system. This means every purchase or transfer of a firearm would have had to be accompanied by a full background check and entered into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), effectively closing the loophole that mostly exists at gun shows and on the Internet. The Manchin-Toomey Bill would have prevented convicted felons from attaining a deadly weapon legally. After this bill failed at the federal level, SHP decided they could be more effective in stopping these massacres by focusing on prevention.

Now, the nonprofit organization trains schools in programs to recognize the warning signs of someone who is at risk of hurting themselves or others and provides them with tools to get the help they need. They have four effective programs that achieve this in different ways, and have already saved so many lives. Even though it was difficult at times, seeing my dad work for gun violence prevention for so long and so tirelessly is amazingly inspiring and makes me proud to be part of this family. My parents showed me that when things are wrong you stand up and you fix them.

Gun violence prevention has always been something I’ve felt strongly about, for obvious reasons. When you know the terrible, life-shattering pain gun violence causes, I think it’s only human nature to want to prevent others from experiencing the same pain. Even in middle school, I got into an argument with another kid over gun safety to the point where he ended up blocking me on social media. Despite my belief in the cause, when I was younger I never wanted to be a big part of this movement, and left that work to my dad. I tried not to listen to the news because I couldn’t handle hearing about shootings. I had difficulty thinking about the shooting for long periods of time, and still do, even with the practice I’ve now gained. I didn’t want to have that conversation every day, because it’s so emotional and hard for me to deal with, even more so when I was younger, because for a long time I was in denial over what happened to Daniel.

It’s been almost six years years since I’ve been able to make a memory with my little brother. Daniel and I got to be in the same school for one year. Sandy Hook Elementary School went from kindergarten to fourth grade. Daniel didn’t even make it through first grade. But while he was in kindergarten, I was in fourth grade. Every morning we’d get off the bus together. His classroom was on the way to mine so we would walk together. I didn’t mind walking with Daniel because he was so cute and we got along very well, so I wasn’t embarrassed like some fourth-graders might be. Sometimes we would even hold hands down the hall. Once we stopped at his classroom he would hug and kiss me, always saying, “Don’t wipe away my kiss!” As he turned into his room he would look back to make sure I obeyed his instructions. Daniel was a wet kisser, so a lot of the time I would wipe my mouth, and he would fake his anger.

My own path in this movement began in early 2018 when I heard an announcement in homeroom referencing a gun violence prevention group called Junior Newtown Action Alliance (JNAA). As I listened, I realized there shouldn’t be a gun violence prevention club in this school that I haven’t joined, let alone never even thought about. Of all people in this school, I should be a part of advocating for such change. After talking to my friends and getting a few of them to join with me, I went to the meeting. That first day I felt so uncomfortable. Everybody in the room knew who I was and looked at me every time Sandy Hook was mentioned (or so it felt). Still, I joined the club and continued to go to the meetings because I knew the importance of me being there.

Not long after I joined JNAA, seventeen students were shot and killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. When I first heard about the tragedy, as terrible as it sounds, I honestly didn’t want to think about it. I think this is something a lot of people do, maybe without even realizing. School shootings are such a horrific thing that it can be easier to just ignore them. But that’s no longer an option.

I realize now we can’t allow ourselves to become comfortable with the murders that are happening every day. I had to acknowledge the horror that happened in Florida, and it brought up emotions and thoughts that usually don’t surface. I knew where that town and those people were on this painful journey, and it connected me to them. I no longer had a choice in speaking out for gun violence prevention. I knew I needed to do this—not only for Daniel, but also for victims of gun violence everywhere.

It’s been almost six years years since I’ve been able to make a memory with my little brother. Every year, the five of us would pile into our van and make the journey down to Florida to visit our family. Some might not enjoy an eighteen-hour car ride in close quarters with their family members, but I always loved that trip, and I think my brothers didn’t mind it, either. We’d listen to books on tape, and when we got the new van, we’d even watch movies. My mom always had lots of snacks for us and we’d go through every road trip song we knew. Another thing we did to pass the time was make “forts” in our car seats. Really, we’d just drape a blanket over our heads and tuck it into the seat in front or behind us. For a kid, there’s nothing more magical than being in your own little fort, even if it’s just a blanket. I can still see Daniel bouncing around under his red blanket, singing along to the song “Dynamite.” It was one of his favorites and he knew every word. Whenever I hear that song now I can’t help but tear up, remembering how full of life he used to be.

Daniel and Natalie. Photo courtesy of the Barden family.

After Parkland, I started to notice these remarkable young survivors who were becoming the voice of those lost to mass shootings. Their strength and determination inspired me, as it did people across America, young people in particular. They showed us the power of our voices and encouraged people everywhere to stand up and say “no more.” These students gave me the strength to become more involved. Since the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, our group, JNAA, held a vigil for Parkland at our high school, we planned and participated in the national walkout, and we traveled to D.C. for the March For Our Lives. I’ve been trying to navigate my way through this new activism while still knowing and respecting my own limitations. Gun violence is an extremely difficult topic to talk about for me, and probably always will be. I force myself to open up when I think projects are worthwhile and will be effective in reaching people.

In early 2018, I was featured in Teen Vogue, where I shared my story very publicly for the first time. This experience introduced me to powerful and inspiring student activists from Parkland and across the country. I now know so many kids who have selflessly committed their lives to activism, some of whom I stay in contact with, and know are always there for me. I also traveled to Parkland to meet with some of the survivors. I spoke with people who were going through what I did. Knowing their long road ahead, it was heartbreaking to be there and feel their pain.

But from all of our pain, a movement emerged. The activism coming from young survivors and people across the country has given me hope, and they give me the strength to continue this work because I know I’m not alone in the fight. When we stand together we can accomplish change. That’s why I believe everyone, young and old, needs to be involved and actively talking about gun violence. I don’t want this momentum to fade. I see the work my father has done over the years combined with the new energy from young activists, and it fills my heart with something I haven’t felt in a very long time: hope.

Daniel’s last letter to Santa. Photo courtesy of the Barden family.