Well, not quite. Jessie McCord Lewis needed a little help from his family to correctly spell nurturing healing love. After all, he was only six years old, and could not be expected to know the spelling. Yes, the words came from him and were written in chalk on his family’s kitchen chalkboard just a few days before he was killed in the December 14, 2012 Sandy Hook School shootings at Newtown, Connecticut.
This is what Scarlett Lewis,wrote about her six year old son Jessie in the opening sentence that appeared in Utne Reader’s 2016 summer edition (p.61). Choosing Love -A mother’s explains her reactions to her son’s murder. It is brief and contains food for thought or the reader as Scarlett talks about her anger and recovery.
She asked “How could this happen?” Scarlett went beyond the asking to do her own research about ange and violence and gives the reader some ideas to consider when she writes about what unexpressed anger does to the human body.
“We know that one angry thought can change us on a cellular level and that repeated anger changes the wiring in our brain. Imagine what years of unchecked anger does to a mind, body and spirit.”
The reader begins to learn how she came to have compassion for her son’s killer. She visualized her son’s killer as a young boy without tools and nurturing to express his emotions. She felt compassion and was able to forgive the murderer of her son.
Learn What Is Important In Life
She writes “Tragedy can be a blessing because you gain an incredible perspective about what is important and the rest falls away. You appreciate what you have and you don’t sweat the small stuff. Since Jesse’s death I have come to understand that the most important thing in life is love and that we are all here to help one another.
One positive outcome from the death of her son was the overwhelming out pour of support that her surviving son JT, who was twelve years old at the time of the killing. Orphan survivors of the genocide in Rwanda reached out to him and shared their survival experiences. JT wanted to give back to these children, and he started a fundraising campaign to send them to a university. To read about his success through his organization, visit www.newtownhelpsrwanda.org.
To spread her son’s message, she started the Jessie Lewis Choose Love Foundation. The website address is http://www.jesselewischooselove.org/.
Move Beyond The Tragedy
Perhaps one of the most outstanding words that the reader is left with after reading the article is Scarlet’s written words that she and JT made the conscious choice to forgive the killer because they realized that they would never be able to “move beyond the tragedy” if they did not forgive.
To spread her son’s message, she started the Jessie Lewis Choose Love Foundation. The website address is http://www.jesselewischooselove.org
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