By Rabbi Ben Kamin
ENCINITAS, California– When the devastated father of Emilie Parker, Robbie Parker, took to the cameras and microphones on Saturday to talk about his murdered 6 year-old child in Newtown, Connecticut, we were able to gain more than a media coup. Even the most cynical (and there are some), who may have viewed the presentation as some kind of grim reach for publicity, would be unable to disagree: the man has a need to tell us about his little girl.
Emilie, one of the twenty tiny children among the 26 massacred innocents of the Sandy Hook insanity, was “beautiful,” declared her father, visibly gasping for air and relief. “She was blonde,” he said, and “she was always smiling.”
Robbie, dressed in a blazer and tie and cloaked in grief, described his lost baby as “a mentor” to her even younger siblings. He took pains to describe her physically, spiritually, and groped for elegiac details of a life too short, too unfulfilled to even offer enough details for a narrative. In his lamentations, his courageous outreach to the families of the other victims—including that of the killer—there was one painful thread: Robbie Parker wanted to tell us what his daughter was like.
And this is what we have to listen for and acknowledge. Parker recalled that Emilie loved to try new things—with the exception of new food. He described her as quick to cheer up those in need. “She never missed an opportunity to draw a picture or make a card for those around her,” he wept.
What these parents need, what they want, is for us to know the details of their children’s personalities, dispositions, and quirks. This is certainly as true for the families of the teachers and educators who were also brutally, senselessly, wantonly cut down in cold blood in a school house.
Here’s what we can do, in this era of total information and access:
• Save the platitudes about gun control and mental illness for now; make an effort to reach out directly to the grieving Newtown community.
• Learn about the unique characteristics of the children and adults who were slaughtered and whose names are now published.
• Use the Internet and access mailing information for the Sandy Hook School and the people who are in mourning. Send handwritten letters of condolence and support that acknowledge and/or pay tribute to the individual personalities of the martyred. [This can be done via the Red Cross or to the school, 12 Dickinson Drive, Sandy Hook CT 06482.]
• Remember that when somebody dies, his or her survivors want acknowledgment of their anguish and they need for us to know is the story of their deceased’s life. Even if the story is too short—it’s still the story of a human life.
May the God of life help make sense of this incomprehensible tragedy.
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Rabbi Kamin is a freelance writer based in Encinitas, California. He may be contacted at ben.kamin@sdjewishworld.com