What My 6-Year-Old's Death in Newtown Taught Me

Nicole Hockley, mother of 6-year-old Dylan Hockley, who was a victim of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012, discusses what it's like to lose a child in this excerpt from an article that originally appeared on Politico Magazine.

Until the morning of Dec. 14, 2012, I was just an ordinary person stressing over what seemed like big problems at the time, shaking my head at the tragedies I would hear about on the nightly news. I was just another mother who really knew nothing about gun violence, politics, lobbying, activism, or how to create social change. I was like so many people in our country, part of the silent majority. That changed forever that morning.

In one incomprehensible moment, the world changed for me and I changed with it. The tragedy transformed every aspect of my life, not only because of the obvious absence of my son, but because of the constant hole left in me that can never be filled. Jake has been forced to grow up far too fast, following the incomprehensible loss of his little brother. Grief and pain have altered the lines on my face. The way I view the world has changed. Interactions with friends and family often seem foreign. And I've become much harder, no longer brimming with optimism; I'm now someone far more realistic, and still and now, I look back so much more.

My entire life is now viewed by the prism of before and after. I mark the passage of time, birthdays, holidays, the first day of school, and the last day of school. I see Jake growing older, but Dylan is frozen in time forever, and a part of me is frozen with him. I keep Dylan's baby teeth and a lock of his hair on my bedside cabinet, beside the urn that holds his ashes. That's all I have of my baby boy now. There are no words to describe how much it hurts. I suppress my feelings constantly, for fear if I were to really ever let them out, if I ever truly allowed myself to cry, I would never be able to stop. It would completely destroy me.

Yet I never had to be that mom. No one does. Because every gun-related death is a preventable death. These are not random acts. You can never say, "This will not happen to me." It can happen to anyone, at any place, and at any time. It's why I've devoted my life to building a national organization because I simply don't want any more parents to lose their children to gun violence.

Visit Politico Magazine to read Nicole's essay in its entirety.

Nicole Hockley is founder of Sandy Hook Promise, a national non-profit dedicated to protecting children from gun violence by providing research-based prevention programs in mental health and gun safety. Her son Dylan was one of the 20 first-graders killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012.