On February 12, 2007, single mother Carolyn Tuft and her 15-year-old daughter, Kirsten Hinckley, of Salt Lake City, Utah, walked into a card shop in the Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City. They were shopping for humorous valentines and birthday cards for her son, Scott Hinckley, who was about to turn 21 years old.

Within the hour, Ms Tuft would be gravely wounded and dragging herself across the floor of the shop, to where her daughter lay. Shards of glass from the front window, blasted by a shot from a disturbed 18-year-old young man on a rampage through the mall, were embedded in her arm. Another bullet had pierced her arm and lung as she crouched in response to the last words her daughter ever spoke to her: “Get down, Mom!” As she reached Kirsten’s side, she felt the muzzle of the gun pressed to her back. The final bullet she took left a hole the size of a cantaloupe in her back. Then she watched as the gunman shot her daughter in the head.

Ms Tuft would survive, a miracle her doctors cannot explain. Five people, including Kirsten, died that day at Trolley Square, before a police SWAT team killed the gunman.

In the eight years since the gunman murdered her daughter, and left her debilitated and unable to continue working as a professional watercolor artist and sculptor, or in her own housecleaning business, Ms Tuft said not a single day has passed without thinking or talking about Kirsten. The path to recovery is an ongoing process, with days of grief and days of joy.

Ms Tuft is visiting in Newtown, the guest of Nicole and Richard Friedrich and family. It is a visit intended to simply strengthen a new friendship for the two women, made during a random meeting at the play 26 Pebbles in New York City this past December. The play, by Eric Ulloa, is based on interviews with Newtown residents directly and indirectly affected by the 12/14 tragedy.

A Personal Connection

Her visit to Newtown is not because of the mass shooting that took place here, she stressed, but because of the immediate connection she felt to Ms Friedrich, and to another Newtown resident she met at the play, Yolie Moreno.

“I’ve never visited other towns where there have been mass shootings. Here, it is that kinship. We all suffer the same kind of loss. We all have the same broken hearts,” she said.

While she supports the work of groups such as Newtown Action Alliance, and has spoken before Congress on gun control issues and her personal experience, Ms Tuft does not consider herself a gun control activist. Rather, she said, she is against gun violence. Ms Tuft would like to see stricter laws governing who has access to guns, and how those laws are enforced.

Had the gun shop owner who sold the Trolly Square shooter the gun carried out his duties by running a background check, it is likely the shooter would not have walked out with a gun, she said. Ms Tuft’s life would not now be one of days filled by recurring pain from her wounds, and she would not be left to simply imagine what her daughter’s life would be like today.

She agreed to speak to a group of Ms Friedrich’s friends and members of the Newtown Action Alliance (NAA) at a luncheon hosted at the Friedrich home, Monday, March 16. Some of the NAA members she had met while attending the nationwide vigil against gun violence at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, in December.

Sharing The Story

“I realized I needed to be sharing my story,” said Ms Tuft, but she does not actively pursue speaking engagements. She was surprised when the Brady Campaign invited her, three years ago, to speak to Congress on the five-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings, which had occurred just two months after her own ordeal. She has spoken, upon request, to groups in Michigan and in Utah, as well.

She has participated in a PBS documentary, and is “a major chapter” in a book about chronic pain.

She rises slowly and her first steps after sitting are stiff, her gait uneven. It is the result of the bullet damage to her back and spine. Her right hand is numb, and nerve damage can cause even the sensation of paper rubbing against it to be painful. They are every day, physical reminders of that February evening eight years ago.

Currently, Ms Tuft is taking part in another documentary, 91 Percent, being created by documentary maker John Richie of New Orleans.

Ninety-one percent is the number of Americans who wanted universal background checks, “begging lawmakers to make it a law and close the loopholes,” said Mr Richie, who filmed Ms Tuft’s conversation with lunch guests on Monday. That number, he said, was according to polls taken prior to the 2013 vote when Congress failed to pass that bill.

While filming another documentary, Shell Shocked, Mr Richie was alarmed to learn the availability of firearms and how easy it is to undermine gun laws. He has joined others in working to strengthen current gun laws, and met Ms Tuft at a lobbying event in Washington, DC.

“She told me her story, and there are a lot of elements to her family’s loss that are perfect examples of how people are affected by these loopholes,” he said. Her story is one of several that will make up 91 Percent, he said.

“I had a deep feeling people needed to hear her story,” Ms Friedrich said, “and create another layer of compassion and support, both ways.” She was pleased that Ms Tuft agreed to the luncheon and Q&A. “The more awareness people have of others’ situations affected by gun violence, the better. You can’t keep closing your eyes to it. Carolyn is not just a statistic: she’s a human. In my eyes,” said Ms Friedrich, “it was helpful to put her story in the front of others’ awareness and help make a change. I knew that [Carolyn] knew and felt what Newtown people feel, and the frustrations of trying to change laws.”

Answering The Unanswerable

Composed of all women, except former Newtown High School teacher Lee Keylock, guests at the luncheon posed questions respectfully to Ms Tuft, seeking, it seemed, answers to the unanswerable.

In response to a statement from one guest, concerning the need to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, Ms Tuft responded that she understood the frustration with convincing lawmakers of the benefits of stronger gun laws. “They can’t see the lives of people who are saved,” she said. What gun control advocates are not trying to do, she said, is take guns away. “We’re trying to make the country safe,” Ms Tuft said.

Newtown resident and blogger Kate Mayer voiced her opinion that America has not a gun problem, but a voting problem. “Show up,” she urged the others. “Send an e-mail, send a tweet. We, as regular constituents of the country, can make a difference,” Ms Mayer said. Persistence and constant pressure on lawmakers “will change things,” she believes.

NAA President Po Murray was surprised to hear Ms Tuft say she had never felt angry as she processed that terrible day.

“From the beginning [of 12/14], I was really angry,” Ms Murray admitted, “at myself.” Like so many others, Ms Murray had not considered the impact of gun violence in America prior to the Sandy Hook School shooting. “I assumed we had universal background checks. That day, I decided, ‘I’m going to do something about it,’” Ms Murray said. NAA, she added, is passionate about creating meaningful changes, and agreed with Ms Mayer that voter engagement is necessary to implement changes to gun laws.

Rebecca Gerlin of Washington, Conn., threw out the question, “What about this culture of violence, and what should we do?” Many present suggested that it is a parent’s responsibility to change the attitudes toward violence as depicted in games, television, and movies.

Mr Keylock noted that there is a lack of empathy, and the organization with which he now works, Narrative 4, is working to increase the sense of empathy in youth and adults. “It’s hard, once a kid leaves your home,” he noted, to oversee what that child hears and sees. Narrative 4 brings people together, all over the country, for story exchange, he said.

Not only do pairs of people each share a personal story — from the humorous to the horrible — but each must take on the other’s story, and then share it — portraying the other person.

“What happens,” Mr Keylock said, “is kids suddenly realize others are human, not ‘others.’” Teaching empathy, he said, is a preemptive strike against violence.

Choosing How To Go Forward

As opinions swirled around the table, Ms Tuft, her daughter, Kait Hinckley Wood, and son, Scott Hinckley, who had accompanied her to Newtown, stood by silently, taking it in. Ms Tuft seemed content to watch the direction in which her story moved among the guests.

If there is complacency in town concerning Newtown’s crisis, as expressed by some, it was not apparent in the gathering at the Friedrich’s residence on Monday.

There may have been a shift in attitude, said Diane Samples of New Fairfield, “But you have to go forward, and choose how.”

A lot has happened in Connecticut since 12/14, regarding gun laws, Ms Mayer said. “These small steps prove those lives mattered, to keep our community safe. And,” she noted, “our community keeps expanding.”

Ms Tuft’s story resonated with Meri Jitsukawa. “Gun violence is everywhere,” Ms Jitsukawa said. “It’s important for people to see and meet people from other places who are affected by it,” she said.

“I survived because I had kids who still needed me to be here,” said Ms Tuft, who has three surviving children. If surviving allows her to enlighten others as to the devastation families affected by gun violence endure, that is a worthwhile effort, she said, following the luncheon.

“Never in a million years did I think I’d meet people from Newtown. When the Sandy Hook shootings happened, it seemed so far away,” said Ms Tuft. She is not seeking out families of those affected by 12/14, nor does she plan for her visit here to be about that event.

Her visit to Newtown is open-ended, for now. “If there is anyone in Newtown who has interest in meeting me, though, I definitely would. We all belong to the same club, which is a sucky kind of club,” she said.

“I’m hoping it helps the people I speak to, in some way. Maybe I have some words that help them through the day,” she said. It does not matter if listeners have suffered the same kind of violence she and her family have, she said. “You’re hurting, regardless of what it is. Be empathetic toward each other,” she urged, “and learn from each other.”

Her purpose in speaking to groups is not to inspire people to be antigun activists. She does hope to inspire others to appreciate life and to appreciate their children’s lives, though. “We need to grab those kids and love them, regardless of if they crash the car, or come in late, or whatever. They’re your kids, and they’re alive,” she said. It is a luxury she no longer has with Kirsten.

The Recovery Process

What can she tell Newtown residents about the recovery process? Eight years later, she does not have a clear message, she said.

“Recovery has been extremely hard. There are days, and there are weeks, when I don’t function. The physical and emotional pain is too great. I think of that day, and of Kirsten, every single day. It’s one day at a time,” she said.

She went to therapy for two years, and found it to be a useful sounding board. Unless the therapist had also suffered a grievous loss, though, she felt there was not a connection. Many therapists, she said, did not know how to talk to someone like her, who had gone through what she has.

She has gotten through difficult times by rising above her own sadness, she said, particularly when she could hear her children sobbing over the loss of their sister. She did not have the community support that has been apparent in Newtown, she said, and did not have a husband to lean on. “It was hard to be alone through that,” she said, “and to have no one to put their arms around me and hold me.”

What gets her through, she said, is recognizing the importance of celebrating the life that is, and the life that was.

She has decided to be a memory maker, in Kirsten’s honor. Every year, around February 12 and again on Kirsten’s birthday, June 9, she and her family welcome her late daughter’s friends back into their life. As many as 50 of Kirsten’s friends meet with them at the cemetery to remember her. One year, they released Chinese lanterns into the sky. This past February, they lit three-foot-long sparklers. On Kirsten’s birthday, they write messages on balloons, “and release them to the heavens,” said Ms Tuft. Then, they all go back to her house and eat Kirsten’s favorite foods — barbequed chicken pizza and salad, followed by chocolate in all guises.

“Kirsten used to do ‘chocolate therapy’ for her friends,” Ms Tuft explained.

It is a therapy that is truly soothing, agreed Kait and Scott. Even so, it is, said Scott, sometimes hard to see where Kirsten’s friends are now, and to think about what her life would be now, had she not been murdered.

“We celebrate her life. We get together and laugh and talk about her — what would she be like now? It’s hard to lose a child, but you can keep their favorite things alive and let them become part of the family tradition. Putting Kirsten on a shelf and not talking about her would be harder,” said Ms Tuft. “It’s because of her that we all stay together,” she said. “It’s one of those blessings that has come of this, as has meeting Nicole [Friedrich].”

Appreciate what each day brings, and appreciate others, she advised. Choose to see the positive in the negative.

“I choose to get up and see the sun rise each day, not shut the blinds and avoid life,” Ms Tuft said. “It’s all about who we decide to be.”

Contact nancy@thebee.com to get in touch with Ms Tuft.