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Nearly a decade has passed since my daughter, Ana Grace, was shot and killed along with 19 other children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. If you’re looking for a family’s “tragedy to triumph” narrative, as I suspect many are, I can’t give that to you.
Ana Grace Márquez-Greene was 6 years old and in first grade when she was murdered in her classroom in a gunman’s rampage. Before Dec. 14, 2012, she had never known a day without love. Or a day of fear. She was the glue that held our family together.
These days mass shootings happen so often that most are covered in bulk — if they make the news cycle at all. Americans save some despair for the Uvalde shooting and the Buffalo shooting, while the shootings not highlighted on breaking news barely even make our radar. Our society is not wired to hold this much trauma.
Families like mine are grateful for the gun-safety activists and survivors who have not given up in the decade since Sandy Hook. We cheer for incremental change in Congress and celebrate legislative wins. But in the same week that President Biden signed into law the first major gun safety legislation passed by Congress in nearly 30 years, the Supreme Court voted to expand gun rights. How many more people will die while we wait for the next incremental step?
It comes as no surprise that America would send nothing but thoughts and prayers to families struck by gun violence. When Ana Grace was murdered, I received dozens of blond angels labeled “Anna” from white Christian women. Some even told me that she had died because we have removed God from the classroom. Yet even churches are marred by gun violence.
Too often we seek to lump everyone who has suffered a devastating loss together and scrutinize them. As a society we have no right to make evaluations and comparisons of courage, casually normalizing the brutality of post-tragedy decisions, or weaponizing post-tragedy responses by adding guilt and shame.
When my daughter died it took us days to decide which family photos or videos to release. We eventually shared a video of my son and daughter at home performing “Come, Thou Almighty King.” With perfect pitch and style, she sang while her brother Isaiah played the piano. It was a small glimpse of what we have lost and the immeasurable absence we deal with every day. This moment of innocence that we shared with the world was later posted on YouTube without our consent, where strangers made ad revenue off our despair. It’s but one of the many examples of how our pain has been exploited by others for personal gain.
After the Uvalde shooting, my inbox was flooded with requests from allies and advocates for autopsy photos of my daughter. What did they think a photo could do that the truth of the tragedy had not already conveyed? Do we really expect the same legislators who watched the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6 and met it with tepid rebuke to somehow be moved by images of my murdered child or those of other parents?
Americans want a healthier and safer world, but we don’t protect wounded people. We don’t protect the people working to keep us safe during a pandemic. We don’t value survival. We want to be shocked. But I will not be used as bait to shame legislators to do the right thing. I will not dishonor my family or demand others do so so that you can sleep at night. I will not allow you to suffocate me under your version of a superhero. Ask more of our legislators and less of those grieving.
In the fight against gun violence, we need two teams: One for all the change that needs to happen and another for the immediate and long-term comfort and support of the survivors. Sometimes those are the same teams, but often they’re not.
If you’re better at rallying at the Capitol or organizing voters, do that. If you can check in with families directly or those around them periodically, this, too, is important. Both are essential. We need action teams and care teams because ultimately changing laws is the goal.
We want formulas or a check box to help people who are grieving. But what survivors need is help and support for more than the first two weeks or the first year. We need you to stick around. And listen. I know it may not feel like enough to just show up for hurting people. But I promise you, that’s what matters the most.
We knew we wouldn’t get a wedding, graduation or another birthday with Ana Grace. Instead, we channeled all our love into her funeral. Her coffin was driven by a horse and carriage and we played music at her service. Nearly a decade later, my husband and I are raising Isaiah, and fighting for moments of normalcy and joy amid the grief that is always there. We have a school, we have scholarships, we have stayed whole.
The demands on survivors to sacrifice their privacy and lives are misguided and ultimately only serve to weaken the gun safety movement. Our country’s problems with guns will not be fixed with images of dead children. Lower your gaze and do the work without asking for any more blood from me.
Nelba Márquez-Greene (@Nelba_MG) is the founder of The Ana Grace Project and a licensed marriage and family therapist. Her younger child, Ana Grace, was shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School.