This week marks the seven-year anniversary of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. On December 14, 2012, a lone gunman claimed the lives of 20 first graders and six educators. Nicole Hockley’s 6-year-old son, Dylan, died on that day.
Nicole is a co-founder of Sandy Hook Promise, a national non-profit dedicated to providing programs and practices that protect children from gun violence. She recently sat down with All Things Considered Host Bill Buchner to talk about Dylan and his legacy through the work of Sandy Hook Promise.
Below is a transcript of their conversation.
Nicole, thank you for coming on with us today.
Thank you for having me.
There must be a lot going through your mind as the anniversary date draws closer. What are some of your thoughts right now?
Right now I’m really focused on my work and trying to ensure that I honor Dylan as best I can before the seven-year mark. Because I will pretty much go dark on that day and the day before. So I’m just keeping focused on doing what I do and the lifesaving work that we’re doing, and I just need to be able to honor my son privately this weekend.
Dylan would have turned 13 this past September. That was a very hard day for you to face. Could you explain why?
Yeah, he turned 13 this year. But it also marked, earlier this calendar year, the day that he was actually gone from my life more days than he had ever been in it. And I had been very much not looking forward to that day because I had so much fear that if he was gone longer that I would be forgetting him. And I haven’t forgotten anything about him. But it was a milestone moment that I was really afraid of, how I would feel that day.
Your nickname for Dylan is “Butterfly.” How did that come about?
Dylan had autism. And a lot of children on the autism spectrum have repetitive movements that they make. And Dylan was a flapper. He flapped his wings, he flapped his arms up and down whenever he was excited or happy, which was fairly often. And he would flap his arms while jumping. And I asked him once, “Why do you flap?” And he looked at me and he said, “Because I’m a beautiful butterfly.” And when I spoke at his funeral, I spoke about the butterfly theory and how a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world can cause or prevent a storm on the other side. And I talked about how Dylan and the others we lost that day were butterflies now to create change. So Dylan is my butterfly and helping to create change through all the work we do at Sandy Hook Promise.
Is there some solace in knowing that Dylan’s legacy is a nationwide movement to prevent gun violence in schools?
His legacy and Daniel Barden’s legacy and Mary Sherlach’s legacy, because we’re all involved in Sandy Hook Promise, we are saving lives every single day with our Know the Signs program.
We just counted the latest numbers and over one million students and educators have participated in at least one of the trainings. We’ve had tens of thousands of tips reported in to schools and state-based anonymous reporting systems just over the last year. We’re intervening on multiple school shooting threats, suicide threats, as well as saving other lives and saving kids to get the help they need before they ever get to the point of hurting themselves or hurting someone else. So his legacy is having meaning and helping others, and that’s how I wanted to honor Dylan going forward.
In your travels, you often meet parents who recently lost a child in a school shooting. What words of consolation and hope do you have for them?
Honestly I spend more time just listening to them. Because every journey through grief is very unique, and the actions that I’ve decided to take and the way I’ve decided to live won’t work for everyone else. So I try to honor them by listening to them talk about their journey and their child.
But I also hope that by showing that there is a time that you can find in your life, in some point in the future, where you can move through it. It’s always going to be there. It never, ever, ever goes away. But there is life that exists afterwards. It’s just a new sort of life. A new sort of reality. And I hope that I help them to continue to step forward each day.
Nicole Hockley, God bless you and your family, and thank you for talking with us today.
Thank you.