‘After Newtown shooting, mourning parents enter into the lonely quiet’

A booster seat, once used regularly by 7-year-old Daniel Barden, remains in the family van. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)

This is journalism:

Eli Saslow (Washington Post): They had promised to try everything, so Mark Barden went down into the basement to begin another project in memory of Daniel. The families of Sandy Hook Elementary were collaborating on a Mother’s Day card, which would be produced by a marketing firm and mailed to hundreds of politicians across the country. “A difference-maker,” the organizers had called it. Maybe if Mark could find the most arresting photo of his 7-year-old son, people would be compelled to act.

It hardly mattered that what Mark and his wife, Jackie, really wanted was to ignore Mother’s Day altogether, to stay in their pajamas with their two surviving children, turn off their phones and reward themselves for making it through another day with a glass of Irish whiskey neat.

“Our purpose now is to force people to remember,” Mark said, so down he went into his office to sift through 1,700 photos of the family they had been.

….  Mark turned on his computer and began looking for the right picture. “Something lighthearted,” he said. “Something sweet.” He had been sitting in the same chair Dec. 14, when he received an automated call about a Code Red Alert, and much of the basement had been preserved in that moment. Nobody had touched the foosball table, because Daniel had been the last to play. His books and toy trains sat in their familiar piles, gathering dust. The basement had always been Daniel’s space, and some days Mark believed he could still smell him here, just in from playing outside, all grassy and muddy.

Now it was Daniel’s face staring back at him on the computer screen, alit in an orange glow as he blew out seven candles on a birthday cake in September…..

Read the complete article here

After their children leave for school, Mark and Jackie walk back up the driveway to their house, back to the emptiness. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)

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WH.gov

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Sandy Hook Promise

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Americans for Responsible Solutions

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Demand A Plan

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One of the issues that matter most removed from the spotlight by Greenwald’s hate fest. Contact Congress, let them know you haven’t forgotten.