Follow @khalid45kk
She went to her grave to the strains of “The Sound of Silence.”
Teacher Victoria Soto, who used her body to shield her students from a madman’s bullets, was serenaded by Paul Simon before she was laid to rest Wednesday.
The singer, who knows the Soto family through his nurse sister-in-law, picked up his acoustic guitar midway through the funeral at the Lordship Community Church in Stratford and — without any introduction — sang the 27-year-old Soto’s favorite song.
When Simon finished, there was no applause. Just a hushed and reverent silence.
As Soto lay in a wooden casket covered with white flowers, her 24-year-old sister Jillian broke down as she eulogized the teacher.
“Somebody wrote me a letter about the recent tragedy that I would like to share with you: In it, it said they had to sit down with three small children, explaining to them that monsters sadly do exist out there. But they felt relief that because of my sister, they were able to tell them that superheroes also are very real.
“You are my superhero.”
Another of Soto’s sisters, Carlee, also recalled the teacher’s selfless courage.
“My sister gave her life to save her kids, and if that's not true strength and heroism, I don’t know what is.”
Soto, who inherited her namesake great-grandmother’s blue eyes, was inspired by her aunt Debbie Cronk to become a teacher.
“I can still hear her voice the day she called me and said, ‘Aunt Debbie, I got a job teaching first grade in Newtown,’” Cronk said, tears cascading down her cheeks. “I think I was more excited than she was.”
Police say when disturbed gunman Adam Lanza burst into Soto’s first-grade class, the young teacher rushed her students into a closet and then placed herself in the path of the bullets.
“You just needed to be an angel, an angel to the 19 children you protected,” said Jillian Soto
Relatives and friends remembered another Soto, the one who played with Barbie dolls and pretended to be a Spice Girl when she was a child, the one who loved family picnics and cracking jokes, burnt macaroni and cheese and the Yankees. The one who loved life.
“She loved to dance, be silly, make people laugh and just do crazy things,” college roommate Rachel Schiavone said of the fifth-year Sandy Hook teacher, who nicknamed her new car “Blaze.”
Funerals for four of the slain Sandy Hook Elementary School students followed, along with a wake for the school’s principal, Dawn Hochsprung.
While Soto’s funeral was going on, Education Secretary Arne Duncan met privately in Newtown with still-stunned Sandy Hook Elementary School staffers.
Newtown’s students went back to school on Tuesday. Sandy Hook students are expected to return after the holidays at a former middle school in nearby Monroe.
As Duncan was bucking up the staffers, yet another child-sized coffin was carried into the St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Newtown, this one bearing the body of 7-year-old Daniel Barden.
Daniel was a smiling, soccer-loving son whose unfailing sweetness made his death so much harder for his parents to bear. He dreamed of being a New York City firefighter, like some of his relatives.
While Daniel didn’t get to live out that dream, he got a firefighter’s farewell. Hundreds of them formed a line outside the church while bagpipers played.
“How could this happen?” the Rev. Robert Weiss asked, posing a question all of America has been asking since the senseless slaughter. “It was just like any other day. A child goes to school and you expect them to be safe — then in a matter of moments, life changes forever.”
Daniel’s funeral Mass was followed by another at the church for 6-year-old Caroline Previdi, another of the 20 children slain by Lanza.
“Caroline was our little dancer,” her mother, Sandy, said. “She loved to dance and sing. She brought such joy to those around her.”
In total, nine funerals for slain children will be held at the church before Christmas.
Not far away, at King Lutheran Church, mourners gathered for the funeral service of Charlotte Bacon, a 6-year-old with a shock of curly red hair.
My wish today, is that when you think of Charlotte, or when we speak of her, that we remember a sweet, bright little girl who loved animals, the color pink and dresses — not how she was killed,” her aunt Georgie told mourners.
Among the mourners was Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy.
Over at Trinity Episcopal Church, friends and family said farewell to 6-year-old Benjamin Wheeler, a New York City boy transplanted to Newtown who loved riding the subway when his family lived in Sunnyside,
0 comments:
Post a Comment