Everyone kind of has each others backs and does whatever it can to help each other out. We will be leaving newtown to give this small town its streets back. For the residents here to grieve and share together. But were not going to stop covering this and talking tab in honor of those who died and to make those in power take action to stop anything like this from happening again. A. C. 360 begins now. Erin, thanks very much. Good evening, everyone. We are live once again from newtown, connecticut. A town where many students returned to school today. Schools reopened, of course, with the exception of sandy hook elementary, the school thats now a crime scene. The students of sandy hook will go back to school after the holidays in a different building some eight miles away, with 20 bright young faces missing from the halls and classrooms. Everything is different now. The children of this town are facing a new reality, doing things they never should have to do at this young age. Like writing goodbye letters to their friends. We told you last night about 6yearold jack pinto who was burred yesterday. At the funeral, a note from his friend john reads, jack, you are my best friend. We had fun together. I will miss you. I will talk to you in my prayers. I love you, jack. Love, john. There were two more funerals for two more 6yearold children. Jessica rekos and James Mattioli were laid to rest today. We will remember them and tonight we honor them. Our hearts and thoughts are with their families and their friends. And we wish peace and strength for all the people whose lives jessica and james touched in just six short years. James mattioli was known as jay. Just 6 years old, had was full of energy. He loved baseball, basketball, arm wrestling but he especially loved swimming. His parentses used to say he swam like a fish. And loved to visit his grandparents. James also learned to ride his bike. He loved to use hair gel in order to spike up his brown hair. He was a little boy who looked forward to growing up. He liked to sing at the top of his lungs and would ask how old do i have to be before i can sing on a stage . He also wanted to know when hed be old enough to order a foot long ham sandwich at subway one of his favorite places. James was born four weeks prematurely, his family used to joke, he came into the world because he was hungry. He was an early riser, always eager to start the day. At the end of the day, he loved nothing more than to cuddle up with this mom under a blanket on the couch. James also adored spending time with his dad. In his obituary, he writes, if dad was outside, james liked to be right there with him. Their one was one of a kind. James was his dads minute any lookalike. Jessica rekos loved everything about horses. Shed spend her free time reading books about them. Drawing pictures, each watching movies about them. Her parents both raised in newtown called her a beautiful, creative little girl who spent time writing in journals and making up stories. They spoke to abc news. I found a little journal, i dont even know what its from. I just opened the book and it was exactly what i needed. It says i love you so much, mama. Its like she knew we were going to need something to help us get through this. Its just what an amazing girl she was. Jessica also became passionate about orca whales after watching the movie free willy. He w she was able to see one in person at seaworld. Jessicas little brother was the rock who kept everyone together. In a statement, her parents write, we cannot imagine our life without her. We are mourning our loss, sharing our beautiful memories we have of her, trying to help her brother travis understand why he cant play with his best friend. We are devastated. Two more little children laid to rest. One thing that weve been doing here is really trying to keep focus on the lives that have been lost. Were not focusing on the killer, hes gone, and frankly, we dont want him to be remembered. Certainly not by name. We tried to be careful of what the families are going through. After sunday nights program, we got a call from the mcdonnell family. 7yearold grace mcdonnells family. I spoke with graces parents chris and lynn at length. They told me who grace was. The light of their family. A little girl who loved school, her brother jack. A talented artist that lived life to the fullest. Made the most of every day. As amazed the strength that graces parents showed they say its grace who is guiding them through these difficult days. Heres our conversation. Tonight, we honor grace, we will remember her. What do you want people to know about grace . Well, grace had such a great spirit. She was a kind and gentle soul. And she was just the light and love of our family. She was just truly a special, special little girl. That we loved and she loved her brother so much. And she loved her school sandy hook and in fact, this week i was telling somebody she had a stomach ache one day, i said why dont you stay home with mom. She said, no way, i have too much fun and i dont want to miss anything. She would skip to get on the bus. Every night the backpack was packed the night before and ready to head off to the bus. Little kisses for each other. I remember that morning, putting her on the bus, she had a habit of blowing kisses but then a big liver lip like ooh, i knew she was so happy to get there. Id like to say she was at a place that she loved, so we take comfort in that, that we know she was in a place that she really loved. And with friends . And with friends. People that loved her. The whole community and the school and the teachers, theyre all raising your child. Exactly. And its a special place. It is. And i take comfort that she was with all her friends. And i just envision all of them Holding Hands. And theyre all together up there. And theyre up there with their wonderful principal. I mean, they have are so much people up there helping them. And i said to somebody, sandy hook, we have so many angels and so many bright stars shining over all of us in this town right now. And each one of those children was you look at their pictures, they were so beautiful. And they all had a story and a talent. What did you say to jack . I mean, how did you because theres a lot of parents right now who are trying to figure out what to say to their children all around the world about this. Telling him was by far the toughest thing to do. I think what we did was truthful, honest, words that he could understand. And hoping that hell be able to process this and how we help to guide him to process this over the long journey ahead. You met with president obama yesterday. What was that like . I did. You know, i know hes the leader of our country, when he walked into that room, it was a very private meeting. But when he walked in the room to greet us, it was just a dad. Hes just a dad coming in to meet a dad and a mom and a son. And we really felt that. We felt his support and it was really it was really special. And we shared some special things about grace with him and her art. You brought him something . We did. We told him that grace had two things in common for him. Their love for Marthas Vineyard and hawaii. And graces dream was to live on the beach and be a painter. And so offered him one of her paintings which he said he would treasure. So that gave us great comfort, too. But really just felt like a dad surrounding us and feeling our pain. You know, when he walked in the room, i realized he has to go to so many families today, and this is not the first time hes had to do this. So, i have to look the ahim and pray for him for strength. I was talking to you before we began. One of the things we were saying is you dont want to have hate or anger in your heart . No, i had said that to jack that, its okay to be angry because, sure, we have anger and were upset and we dont know why. But i told jack that he could never live with hate. Grace didnt have an ounce of hate in her. And so we have to live through grace and realize that hate is not how our family is. And not certainly not how grace is. And i know all those beautiful little children, they didnt have any hate in them either. So well just take the lead from them, and we will not go down that road. But well let them guide us. Its a hard thing, though, isnt it to not feel that . Were going to go on and were going to use her positive energy to help guide us forward. One of gracies favorite thing to paint or draw was a peace sign. And she just had a birthday in november when she turned 7. She request i said, what would you like your cake to look like, grace . And she said, i want a purple cake with a turquoise peace sign and polka dots. And sure enough, her cake was purple, polka dots, turquoise, it was totally grace. And a one of a kind, too. She was all about peace, she really was. And i was looking the morning after i was in the bathroom, and i used to dry her hair next to the window. And the window would fog up and she would write notes in the window to me. And on saturday morning, i was standing at that window in the bathroom, it had fogged up and i looked, and there was her peace sign in the window. And i was like, thats a sign from my grace. And in the sign it said mom, she drew a heart. She was all about peace and gentleness and kindness. You went to the funeral home, and you were telling me the story of she has a white casket . She does. When we walked in the room, it was the first time we had been able to be with her. And when we walked in the room, and we saw that white casket. You felt like the floor was falling out beneath you and your breath was taken away. Earlier in the morning, i decided because grace loved art so much, we were packing sharpies in our pockets. When we got in, after we did our big family hug with grace, we sat down and we busted out the sharpies. At first i envisioned maybe a little heart. But by the time we were done, there wasnt an inch of white. Was so covered with all the things that she loved. And her brother, we wrote her notes and her nicknames and all the things that she loved. Cupca cupcakes. Places youd been together . Ice cream cones, seagulls. Shes laughing at us right now because our artwork is terrible. But when we left the room it was certainly so hard to leave her because that would be the last time that we would be able to be with her. We had to take great joy in knowing when we walked in there it was so white and our breath was taken away. But when we walked out of there, it was like we had joy again. It had so much color and it was grace. It was so grace. You were able to give her things as well . Yes. We brought her her favorite pocketbook. And we had seashells and flipflops and sunglasses. And she loved to cook. We had a frying pan. She loved music. She has taylor swift Christmas Song in there. She has her dads new york yankee hat. So she had all the things that she loved with her. So we took we had peace when we left last night. Its got to be hard not to have been not actually to see her . Well, at first i thought that. And i had questioned maybe wanting to see her, but then i thought, she was just so, so beautiful, and she wouldnt want us to remember her looking any different than her perfect hair bow on the side of her beautiful long blond hair. And so well take comfort in looking, we have so many beautiful pictures of her. Well take comfort in remembering her beautiful smile and ill remember her blowing the kisses that day, getting off the bus, going off to school. I want to thank the mcdonnells for inviting us into their home. It was a true honor getting to hear about grace. After that interview, i gave them my number, and i said if theres anything that they forgot to say, anything that they wanted to say that they thought of later to just let me know, and they should just contact us. This morning, we got a note from m mrs. Mcdonald, lynn. She said when anderson visited our house i showed hip one of the picture books in Marthas Vineyard. I always said i took my photograph to be my chirps eyes. I wanted them to remember everything from our adventuring together. Now, im going to be graces eyes but her voice. I feel fearless. I never felt any more pain than i do right now. Im going to take on the world for our gracie girl. I myself have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Jack and grace always said, you have conquer your fear. I will not forget the mcdonnells or their Amazing Grace. You heard lynn talk about giving president obama one of the pictures. She gave me the same picture. A xerox are copy of it, its an owl. President obama said he would cherish it. I will cherish it as well. Here are a few more pictures as we go to break. [ female announcer ] Research Suggests cell health plays a key role throughout our lives. One a day womens 50 is a complete multivitamin designed for Womens Health concerns as we age. It has 7 antioxidants to support cell health. One a day 50 . Look at one of the many memorials for the victims here in newtown tonight. As we mentioned earlier, its the First Time Since fridays tragedy newtown students returned to classrooms. Every school but sandy hook elementary has reopened. The question is, what should be routine, of course, is no more. Returning students and staff are met by more Police Officers and counselors than there were before. For some today, it was their first chance really to talk about what happened with their friends. Had it to be an extraordinarily difficult day for the students . A difficult day but a really necessary day. We spoke to students and parents. What we were hearing, parents say theyre eager to get back to the routine. They know kids like routine. If youre a parent, thats what kids want. The students say when they were on the bus it was extraordinarily quiet. They were starting to have conversations inside the school. An 11yearold boy told us he felt better being in school. He felt protected there. The teachers were reaching out to him. As a sign of comfort, it was across newtown and the surrounding communities, police cars in every single school. The high school i was at in newtown, three police cars. Its still impossible to imagine. Appreciate the reporting. Thank you very much. Its been particularly difficult, obviously, for students to go back to school. Dr. David schoenfeld is a crisis counselor who gave a demonstration to teachers in newtown on how to talk to children. Hes the director of the National Crisis and bereavement. Thank you for being with us. Thank you. You met with teachers. What is your message to them . Well, there are a couple messages i want to get across. The first is to recognize how heroic it is to be able to help students in a time like this. We have to remember all of the staff. Theyre grieving some of their own members of the staff. Theyre definitely grieving the loss of the children they were close to. Sure. And they care about. Theyre also impacted by it. The first thing is to recognize what theyre doing and how courageous that is. One of the things i heard you say, its okay to show emotion when talking with the students . Right. A lot of times we dont want to upset children and we dont want to show them were upset. But really, the kids are already upset. They want to know about this. If we never so them distress, we can model with them how to cope with it. Seeing some distress with adults that they care about, particularly when its followed by suggestions on how to deal with that and cope with it effectively is helpful for them to feel. What else do you want them to know . I also wanted them to know we had to change some of the expectations of what we could accomplish in terms of learning over the next week. We have to meet the students where they are right now. And we also have to meet the teachers and other school staff where they are. As far as i was concerned there was only one lesson plan that they needed to teach before they broke for the new year. That was to make sure that the children knew they were safe, they cared about them and they were going to care for them. I get for a number of students, this is obviously the first time that theyve had to face death. That theyve had to deal with this at all. It is for many of the children. Unfortunately, we know 9 out of 10 children are going to experience a significant loss of a death or Family Member or friend by the time they complete high school. So for many children, it will not be a new experience, but obviously, this is a profound experience for anyone. And how do you i mean, do you talk to kids . Or i guess part of the lesson is that not all teachers will be counselors. That if somebody needs your extensive conversation, there are other people to refer them to . I think its important that we underscore what were asking the teacher staff to do and the rest of the staff and the school, the support staff, is to create a supportive environment. Not to provide counseling. It doesnt need to be its not their responsibility to provide therapy. There are others in the school that will do it. And others in the community that have that role. But what we want from the school staff is to be is to be able to create a safe and supportive environment. Youve obviously dealt with this sort of thing before. How do you think this community is doing . Well, i arrived here saturday night. Actually the american fedation of teachers reached out to me on friday and asked me to come and help their staff and i arrived on saturday. I was greeted immediately by the commissioner of education, stephen pryor. And we met well into the night on what to do. When i was able to meet with the superintendent, janet robinson. And the other staff. I was really impressed by the concern, the caring, and the profound commitment that they have for these children. Its a closeknit community. Dave i appreciate you being with us. Thank you very much. Next, a special mission for noah, 6yearold nose what pozner laid to rest. His cousin couldnt make it to the funeral but wanted to make sure he got that letter. Well talk to noahs uncle. I gave birth to my daughter on may 18th, five days later, i had a massive heart attack. 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