Our grandson Noah Pozner lost his life in Sandy Hook on Dec. 14, 2012. He had just turned six. Ten years on, he is both unequivocally gone and vividly present. Nobody knows it better than his mother, my daughter Veronique De La Rosa. And what better way to honor his memory on this tenth anniversary than to ask her to talk about him. “Noah’s earthbound story was over before he had time to finish writing the first chapter. And in such an unspeakable way that I don’t have the words to talk about it. So his story has become my story, in turns wings or anvil, depending upon the day, sometimes the ..read more

Photo courtesy of Noah’s parents. The kids on the beach are his sisters. Nine years have gone by since the Sandy Hook massacre that took our grandson Noah’s life and the lives of 25 others, including 19 kids and 6 educators. He had turned 6 three weeks earlier. That day will remain branded in my memory until the day I die. It isn’t in my power to change any of it, to go back in time wishing for a snow day or for a pandemic that would have closed schools and given the killer time to reflect and stand down. Sometimes I even wish guiltily that Noah had had a fever and stayed home. But then I th ..read more

Noah (Photo courtesy of my daughter Veronique, his mom) We lost our grandson Noah in the Sandy Hook shooting on December 14, 2012. He was 5 on the above picture. He was killed three weeks after he turned 6. Five years ago as I was walking at the edge of the surf (we now live near the coast), I was thinking that it had been months since I had last dreamed of Noah or seen any « signs » of him. What I call a « sign » is something unusual in the outside world that makes me hope that Noah is still around somehow, somewhere, if only in spirit. Almost as soon as the melancholy t ..read more

It has been seven years. Noah has now lived longer in our memories than in the flesh. Seven years since a dark soul carried a semiautomatic rifle into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and murdered everyone in his sights, including twenty first-graders and six educators. Our grandson Noah had turned six three weeks before. We lived near Seattle at the time and I had flown cross-country just before Thanksgiving to be with him and his twin sister on their birthday. It would be the last time I would see him in person although one of my most precious memories is chat ..read more