Sandy Hook shooting survivors set to graduate from HS with mixed feelings: ‘A whole chunk of our class missing’
Sandy Hook shooting survivors are set to graduate from Newtown High School on Wednesday with mixed feelings knowing 20 of their slain classmates won’t be walking across the stage with them.
About 60 of the 330 graduating seniors from the Connecticut high school were in Sandy Hook Elementary School when a deranged gunman opened fire on Dec. 14, 2012, killing 20 first graders and another six staffers.
While the victims of one of the worst school shootings in US history will be honored during the ceremony, it hasn’t been revealed how.
“I am definitely going to be feeling a lot of mixed emotions,” said Emma Ehrens, 17, who was one of the 11 children from Classroom 10 to survive the attack.
“I’m super excited to be, like, done with high school and moving on to the next chapter of my life. But I’m also so … mournful, I guess, to have to be walking across that stage alone. … I like to think that they’ll be there with us and walking across that stage with us.”
Ehrens was one of five students who talked to the Associated Press about the big day ahead and the emotional burden associated with it.
Lilly Wasilnak, 17, said she thinks everyone is “super excited” for graduation.
“But I think we can’t forget … that there is a whole chunk of our class missing,” said Wasilnak, who was in a classroom down the hall from the gunfire.
“And so going into graduation, we all have very mixed emotions — trying to be excited for ourselves and this accomplishment that we’ve worked so hard for, but also those who aren’t able to share it with us, who should have been able to.”
Another student, Grace Fischer, acknowledged graduating students from Sandy Hook didn’t have a typical school experience.
“As much as we’ve tried to have that normal, like, childhood and normal high school experience, it wasn’t totally normal,” Fischer, 18, said.
“But even though we are missing … such a big chunk of our class, like Lilly said, we are still graduating. … We want to be those regular teenagers who walk across the stage that day and feel that, like, celebratory feeling in ourselves, knowing that we’ve come this far.”
Students hope moving onto the next chapters of their lives give them an opportunity for a fresh start.
“In Sandy Hook, what happened is always kind of looming over us,” said Matt Holden, 17, who was in a classroom down the hall from the shooting.
“I think leaving and being able to make new memories and meet new people, even if we’ll be more isolated away from people who have stories like us, we’ll be more free to kind of write our own story. … And kind of, you know, not let this one event that happened because we were very young define our lifetimes.”
“For me, I feel like it’s definitely going to get better and be able to break free of that system and just be able to become my own person rather than, again, the Sandy Hook kid,” Ehrens added.
The students have been involved in the Junior Newtown Action Alliance and in anti-gun violence efforts in a bid to prevent other tragic mass shootings.
Ella Seaver, 18, said she plans on studying psychology in college to become a therapist to give back to others.
“Putting my voice out there and working with all of these amazing people to try and create change really puts a meaning to the trauma that we all were forced to experience,” Seaver said.
“It’s a way to feel like you’re doing something. Because we are. We’re fighting for change and we’re really not going to stop until we get it.”
With Post wires
