Yesterday morning, the television trucks and reporters rolled into Newtown in droves to cover the release of the State's Attorney's report on the investigation into the murders at the Sandy Hook School. The helicopters hovered overhead just like they did almost a year ago, that unmistakable sound reminding me of that dark day last December. All the while the news outlets reported "breaking news" of another potential mad man with a gun on the loose at neighboring Yale University. The campus was locked down for six hours, and thankfully, the reports were unfounded. Yesterday's events delivered yet another body blow to this community.

In this formerly quiet and obscure town, parents now have to worry about their children, struggling with how to shield them from the news, and what to say when they inevitably ask about the report. In anticipation of the release of the report, high school kids tweeted to their classmates: "Be Strong Newtown. Love wins." Newtown's school superintendent circulated some advice to help prepare parents for the conversation about the report; but in the end, it's a conversation between a parent and a child about something that occurred here, to us, which never should have.

It's a conversation that no parent should ever need to have with a child, and yet in Newtown, it is one that now occurs often. We cannot escape it or cut it off because of the constant reminders, like the report. But yesterday was only one event in a string of many. There will be more reports, leaks, and the one-year anniversary. Yesterday marked the beginning of another very difficult period for Newtown. For a town so desperately trying to heal, the report only serves to rip open scabs and create more pain.

While I strongly believe in the First Amendment, I wish this report did not have to be released, that the public didn't need to know this level of detail of what happened inside the school. One of the family members of a victim commented:

No one will understand the pain. I just saw a picture of the gun that murdered my sister. I can't even believe this.

Nothing in the report changes the fact that 20 children were killed along with six educators, that our community continues to grieve, and that each time one of these reports comes out, it hinders the healing process and forces us to take steps to protect our children from further scarring.

While I do not speak for the families and cannot imagine their pain, shouldn't their interests matter? The family of Vicki Soto issued this statement:

The releasing of this report is yet another blow that our family has been dealt. While others search for the answer as to why this happened, we search for the how. How can we live without Vicki? How do we celebrate Christmas without Vicki? How do we go on every day missing a piece of our family? Those are the questions we seek the answers for. There is nothing in the report that will answer those for us. So, yes, we have read the report, no we cannot make sense of why it happened, we don't know if anyone ever will. We don't know if we will ever be whole again, we don't know if we will go a day without pain, we don't know if anything will ever make sense again.

Do we really need to put them through this?

And so, I prefer to focus on the positive side of this strong community. As Vicki Soto's family concluded:

We do know that we will stick together and we will be strong, and we will live, laugh and love as Vicki would want us to.

Recently, my friend Chris McDonnell, who lost his daughter Grace at the Sandy Hook School, inspired us by completing the Ironman in Kona, fulfilling a promise he had made. After crossing the finish line he told the world:

No matter what life dishes out to you, you can always keep going. You put one foot in front of the other and you cross the finish line. Perhaps telling this story will inspire others to look up, move forward.

He carried the message of peace, love and hope.

Pat Llodra, our wonderful First Selectman (mayor), is encouraging acts of kindness during this anniversary period:

We can tap into that inner strength we have called upon again and again over this past year to confront what we must, manage that hurt as best we can, and put it behind us somehow. We can be sure to not let others control our destiny. We cannot change what happened at Sandy Hook School; we can only choose how we respond.

In another blog post she wrote:

Maybe this tragedy can serve as a reminder for all families to set aside a few minutes to talk together about the importance of compassionate acts – that those acts become the glue that binds us together in our humanity … In Newtown, we are encouraging every resident, young and old, to use the weeks leading up to this anniversary, as a time to formally commit to acts of service and kindness. Perform a kindness in honor of those who lost their lives at Sandy Hook School; and spend some time in reflection about how our future can be made better for all persons. We have the opportunity to continue to move toward positive change – there is no greater gift of love than to act on behalf of those whose lives were taken.

Every day in Newtown people are living this mantra. Most are doing it without fanfare – a resident buying groceries for a senior or a child making brownies for the fire department. On 12 December, Newtown residents will be in Washington DC performing acts of kindness and the Newtown Foundation will be hosting a national vigil at the Washington National Cathedral to remember the over 30,000 gun violence victims in the United States in the last year.

Communities including Newtown, Hartford, Chicago, Aurora, Oakland, Oak Creek, and Virginia Tech will stand together truly united. These are the stories that should be trumpeted. These are the lessons we should be teaching our children. If we choose to take this journey together, one day a different type of report will be written. This one will be about how Newtown did not let tragedy define our community, but instead built a broad coalition of Americans from all walks of life and transformed our society to one of peace, love and hope.

Until then, my take away from this latest report is that it only confirms what we all already knew – that our teachers and staff acted heroically and saved lives.