Choosing Hope: Moving Forward from Life's Darkest Hours

by Kaitlin Roig-DeBellis

  The drive to Sandy Hook took fifty minutes on a good day on I-84, and that day traffic was light. Taking exit 10 off I-84, as usual, I meandered through the Newtown countryside, excited to start the day. As I turned onto Dickinson Drive, I glanced at my dashboard clock. It was 7:45. I parked my car in the teachers’ lot, reached for my pile of books and papers, and proceeded to the school’s main entrance, through the double doors, past the main office, and across the hall to my classroom. Dropping my books on my desk, I went right to work. Our reading specialist was coming to observe my class and I wanted to make sure everything was ready for her visit. The year before, Sandy Hook had adopted the Reading Workshop program, which gives students the tools they need for more independent reading and comprehension skills. The reading specialist was scheduled to arrive at 9:45 and spend an hour or so monitoring how the program was working, specifically, whether the students were engaged in what they were reading and thinking critically about what they had read. It was an important day for my students and me, and I wanted to make sure everything was in order. For instance, that their reading bins had the proper material, and that the lesson I’d prepared for the workshop was comprehensive enough. I was so busy that I hadn’t even taken the time to greet a group of my coworkers as they walked back and forth between the main office and a nearby conference room where a meeting was being held. By the time the buses arrived and my students filed into our classroom, a few minutes before nine, I felt ready for the day. At 9:10, like clockwork, the announcements came over the PA system, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence.

  “Good morning, Fantastic Friends!” I said, just before taking attendance.

  “Good morning, Miss Roig!” they replied.

  Only one of my students was missing—a boy who was away skiing with his family. After attendance, my students settled in to do their morning work until I played the song to signal morning meeting. They gathered around my chair, excited to get started. I picked up a pile of cards, each one with a different greeting written on it, and fanned them out the way a magician does a deck of playing cards before a magic trick. The cards said things like ¡Hola! and Bonjour and High Five! One student picked a card from the deck, and whatever was written on it was the day’s greeting. The student with the card then greeted the classmate seated beside him or her, and then that child greeted the next child in the circle, and so on. I always reminded my students that when they were greeting one another to look their classmates in the eyes, speak kindly, and offer a firm but not too hard handshake.

  That morning, the card chosen was Ball Roll, a special card and one of the kids’ favorites, which meant they got to roll a ball to one another as they said their good mornings. The student seated next to me was always excited about being able to greet the teacher. That morning, it was the little girl with cascades of brown curly hair who always wore pink. “Good morning, Miss Roig,” she said, in her tinkling first-grade voice. I loved that moment. You can’t help but be happy after looking into the eager eyes of a sweet, smiling first-grader.

  After that, we moved on to sharing time, a few minutes when the students got to share personal stories with one another. Because the Christmas season and Hanukkah were upon us, the theme that day was “Our Holiday Traditions.” One of my students, a rambunctious boy with chestnut-colored eyes and foot-long lashes, smart as a whip, had been chattering about Christmas since September, and now it was just eleven days away. He was wild with anticipation. He told the story of his cousins coming to spend the holidays, squealing as he spoke. (For the last three months, when it was his turn, he told the same story, but his classmates didn’t seem to mind, or, if they did, they were kind enough not to say so!) As was our routine, three students got to share stories and the others were expected to make comments and ask questions. The others talked about making cookies, and visiting Santa, and listening for reindeer, and lighting the menorah, and visits with family members and friends. At the end of each presentation the storyteller addressed his or her classmates, saying, “Thank you for my comments and questions.” It was an important way of instilling in the children the appropriate way to share and speak with their peers.

  Next on the schedule was Morning Message, a time when we discussed what the day was to bring. That day, of course, we talked about the visit from our reading specialist and how important it was for us to impress her with our reading skills. “Let’s get excited about today!” I said. “You’re going to shine!” It was 9:30, fifteen minutes before the “big test.” The students were eager to show off their reading skills and the books they had tucked in their bags, ready to read.

  But we never got that far.

  FIRST COMES the initial blast of gunfire, then the sound of shattering glass. The hair on my arms stands up. I know right away what I am hearing. Columbine is happening in the place we called Pleasantville. How can it be? Someone with a weapon is shooting their way into our perfect school. My classroom is the first one in the building. We are in grave danger, I think, sitting targets. I jump up, run to the door, pull it closed, and switch off the lights. Thank God for the piece of dark blue construction paper I taped to the door window months ago in preparation for a lockdown drill and forgot to take down. I can’t lock the door. My keys are clear across the room, on top of my desk, and there’s no time to fetch them. For what? A locked door is no match for a magazine of bullets. If we’re going to live, we have to find a hiding place. Fast. I look around the classroom. My students don’t seem to understand what is happening. One, the little girl I call our fashionista, because she wears things like leopard prints and leggings, stands there smiling. I can’t tell if she is somehow oblivious to the sounds or scared frozen. The windows don’t open wide enough for a first-grader to climb through, and who knows what or who is waiting outside? Evil is coming for us and there’s nowhere to go.

  Where can we hide? Where can we hide? There’s only one place. The bathroom—a tiny, tiny first grade–sized lavatory with only a toilet and a toilet-paper dispenser inside. Its dimensions are about the size of two first-grade desks pushed together. Maybe three feet by four feet. There is so little space that the sink is on the outside, in the classroom. I have never even been inside of the bathroom before. An adult wouldn’t fit comfortably. How in God’s name will I get sixteen of us in there? It is our only chance. The impossible will have to become possible.

  Everything is happening so quickly. We are under siege. I turn to my students, who look up at me with pleading eyes. “Into the bathroom! Now!” I say.

  At first they protest. “In there?” “How?” “Why?” “What do you mean, Miss Roig?”

  “Bathroom! Now!” I say, repeating myself. They understand that the teacher means business. I rush them toward the back of the classroom. Shots are being fired outside our classroom door. There’s no time. “Hurry!” I say, pushing them into the tiny space with the toilet in the center. “Hurry!” But I know that no matter how quickly my students respond, it will still take two or three minutes to get everyone inside, minutes I feel sure we don’t have.

  We all push into the bathroom, and when there isn’t a millimeter of space left, I begin lifting my students and piling them inside. I place one student, then two, then three on top of the toilet and hoist up my littlest girl and sit her on the toilet-paper dispenser. We are all crushed together with not even enough room left to take a deep breath. I reach out to pull the door closed, but the door isn’t there. Oh my God. In my rush to try to save us, I didn’t even notice. The door opens into the bathroom. We are blocking it with our bodies. I feel myself beginning to panic. Here we are, stuffed into a room, with a madman bearing down on us, and the door that is supposed to hide us is obstructed by us and can’t close.

  My heart pounds against my chest, but I cannot afford to lose my composure, not if we are to have any chance of getting out of this alive. First-graders model their teacher’s behavior. If I panic, they’ll all panic, and we
’ll be dead. One by one, I pick up the students who are blocking the door and move each one behind it until I am finally able to push it closed. But just before I do, I reach outside for a large storage cabinet on wheels that is nearby and pull it as close as I can to the front of the bathroom door, hoping that maybe it will conceal the door. “Now,” I say, “we have to be absolutely quiet. We can’t say a word.” I can’t help but wonder if, by trapping us in the bathroom, I have just sentenced us to certain death. What if the shooter realizes that the storage cabinet is a ruse and shoots right through it?

  Someone shouts, “Shooter! Stay put!” Is that our principal? The school nurse? Another teacher? The sounds are too muffled to tell. Then, ear-splitting, rapid-fire shots, like a machine gun—di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di-di—over and over and over. We hear pleading. My students stay perfectly quiet. First-graders are black-and-white. They understand that someone very bad is searching for us and in order for us not to be discovered they stay perfectly quiet. In our silence, we hear voices, although whose is unclear. They are muffled voices. People are pleading for their lives. “No! Please, no! Please! No!” If my students are to keep even relatively calm, they must not know that my insides are shaking and I’m sure we are all about to die. It’s a very difficult thing, putting on a cool front in the midst of what I know is life and death. With the inescapable sounds of carnage happening all around us, my little ones are feeling desperate. “What is happening?” one of them whispers. My fashionista begins to cry. I cup her face in my hands and look into her teary eyes. “We’re going to be okay,” I promise. I never make promises I can’t keep, especially not to children, but this is a matter of life and death. The boy who straddles the top of the toilet is shaking so hard that he accidently flushes. Once, then again. We all hold our breath. Shhhhhhhhhh!!!!! Did the shooter hear? I look at the boy and his face says it all. I’m scared and I’m sorry and I don’t know what to do. “Miss Roig, I don’t want to die today,” one of my students whispers. “I just want my mom,” another one says, fighting tears. “I don’t want to die before Christmas,” says my student who has been talking about the holiday for months. We are squeezed together like fingers in a tight fist. My kids want out of this sweltering, sealed-up box we’re in. “I’ll lead the way!” one of the boys whispers. “I know karate,” says another boy. Hadn’t it been only moments ago that he told us the story of finding a dollar under his pillow for his two front teeth? “No,” I say gently. “There are bad guys out there and we need to wait for the good guys to come.” I can’t bear to think that their last moments will be spent this way: in fear. I must reassure them, even though I don’t believe my own words. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay,” I say. Then, because I believe that death is imminent and I want to do whatever I can to make them feel safe, I tell them how much they have meant to me. “I need you to know that I love you all very much,” I say. In comforting them, I have also brought comfort to myself. “Anyone who believes in the power of prayer needs to pray right now,” I say, “and anyone who does not needs to think really happy thoughts.” I put my hands together and start to pray. The kids are too crammed together to move their arms, but most of them close their eyes and I assume they are following my instruction. The shooting continues. Now I am prepared to die.

  IT’S BEEN QUIET for a while now. Eerily quiet. How can a school that I know had been full of people this morning be absolutely silent now? Where is everyone? It seems like just my students and me are left in the building. I feel isolated and profoundly alone. I wonder if the gunman is lurking outside our door, waiting for us to feel safe enough to come out of the bathroom and fall into his trap. So much time has passed that it feels like forever. I worry that we may run out of air. If the good guys were coming, they would have been here by now, wouldn’t they? Why is it so deathly quiet? I think about my beloved fiancé and all the plans we’ve made for our future together. He suffered so much when he lost his mother, I’m not sure he can survive the tragedy of losing me. Nick needs me, and so do my loving, devoted parents. I worry that they will not be able to handle my death. I think about my students’ parents and the unimaginable grief they will suffer because I was powerless to save their children. My worst fear is that I will see my class murdered before I die and I won’t be able to stop it. All we can do now is wait.

  An eternity passes. The bathroom is stifling and my armpits are soaked with sweat. Some of my kids are becoming impatient. “I’m hot, Miss Roig,” one whispers. “Can we please get out?” asks another. Several say they need to go to the bathroom. For the most part, though, they are quite content to be quiet if it means the bad guy can’t find us. I wonder what is happening outside. Does the silence mean the shooter is gone? Or is he preparing for his next move? Then, from the other side of the wall, come the voices of people who are barking orders. I hear them clearly. “Don’t look up.” “Don’t open your eyes.” “Walk quickly.” Oh my God. Is there more than one shooter? Are they kidnapping people? What is going to happen to us? My heart races in my chest. My kids look up at me. “Shhhhhhhh,” I say. We have been in the bathroom for a very long time. At least forty-five minutes. The heat is becoming unbearable. We can barely take a deep breath.

  A knock comes at the door and we all stiffen with fear. I put my index finger to my lips. I fear that if we make any noise, the shooter will realize that the teacher has hidden her whole class in here. “Ask who’s there,” I whisper to one of my students. I don’t want the shooter to know that there are sixteen terrified people huddled together behind the bathroom door. “Who is it?” my little guy asks. I can hear the quiver in his voice. “Hey, little fella,” someone replies. The man sounds kind, but I am unconvinced. “We’re here to help you,” he says. “Unlock the door.” No way, I think. Why in the world would I trust the words of a faceless stranger? No way am I going to risk opening the door for a killer. Now, I speak. “If you really are the police, I need your badge,” I say. Seconds pass. A badge is slipped under the door. I pick it up and examine it. It looks fake, like a play badge that one of my students might wear. I desperately want for it to be real, but I’m not convinced. “This doesn’t look real,” I say. “I don’t believe you.” I look around at my kids and I know they are thinking what I am. Please let this be the good guys. One little girl is choking back tears. I take her face in my hands and smile. If she starts to cry, the others will cry. I can’t let that happen, not until I find out who is on the other side of the door. “If you are the police and you’re here to help us, then you should have the key to this door. Or you should be able to get it,” I say. A few more minutes pass before I hear the rattle of keys. I hear the scraping sound of a key going into the lock. It doesn’t work. Another key, another failed attempt. Then five and six and seven tries. My stomach churns with each twist of the lock. My students’ eyes are wide.

  The tenth key works. The knob turns and the door pushes in. I see an army of uniforms—people dressed in black and wearing helmets and carrying big guns, peering in at us. A SWAT team is in our classroom. The good guys are here. I am flooded with feelings of relief and gratitude. They look as surprised to see all of us as we are to see them. I think they were expecting to see one child, not the teacher and her entire class. I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my life.

  They pull us out of the bathroom, at first, one by one, until there is enough room for us to move on our own. Our heroes lead us out of the classroom and guide us in the opposite direction of the bodies in the hallway and the bloodstained floor. I grab the hands of the two students closest to me and follow the instructions to “go. Fast.” We rush the students down the hall and out of the building. “Where is the bad guy?” I ask as we make our way to the firehouse. Is he still lurking here, somewhere, ready to hurt us? They assure me that we are safe. I say “Thank you” over and over. “Thank you for finding us in that tiny bathroom.” “Thank you for being the good guys.” “Thank you for saving our lives.”

/>   The Firehouse

  Our rescuers lead us across the parking lot and around the corner to the old brick firehouse, where we go during evacuation drills. But the scene there is anything but controlled and organized the way it is during practices and drills. Inside, it is chaos. We are the last class in. At first we are taken to a holding area. I worry, even though I have been reassured that we are safe, that someone is going to burst in shooting. Finally, we are escorted to a larger room where the rescued students are lined up by grade and by class to wait to be claimed. We are ushered to the first-grade section.

  Looking around, I see a bizarre dichotomy of emotions. Some people are running around in a frenzy, searching the faces in the crowd for loved ones. Some are crying. Others are chatting amiably. I hear the sound of cartoons playing (perhaps to soothe our traumatized children?). Someone is on his phone, ordering pizzas and sodas. Who thinks of ordering pizza at a time like this? I am incredulous, unaware that most of the people here have no idea what happened inside of that school.

  With my students settled, I reach for my cell phone to call Nick and my mom and realize it’s back in the classroom, so I borrow a phone from a colleague and dial their numbers, but neither one picks up. A moment later, I borrow someone else’s phone and try again. This time, my mom answers. She tells me she has just heard about a shooting at the school and was headed out to meet me. My students are all around me, so I don’t want to say too much. “Please, just come as soon as you can,” I say.

  The parents of my students arrive in quick succession. Mothers and fathers shriek with relief and joy when they spot their children. I am dazed but somehow functioning, going through the motions. Before anyone can leave, I hand the parents a pen and ask that they sign their children out—the way I used to do at the end of a day at summer camp. This is surreal, I say to myself. Some of the parents wish me a good weekend before whisking their children away. Some say cheerily, “See you on Monday!” as if nothing has changed.