A guy by the name of John Ciambriello was emailing me my last day or two on the air in 2012. All I remember was something about an event he was putting together that Saturday for the residents of Newtown...in West Haven. There were many events either having taken place, taking place, or about to take place for the people of Newtown at the time and, to be honest, all I kept thinking was, "STOP." They want to be left alone. They need to be left alone. They need each other and only each other right now. Toy drives perplexed me; surely Newtown had canceled Christmas this year, instead tragically spending the holidays burying 20 beautiful children and 6 extraordinarily brave adults who stood between them and a lone gunman. Briefly. What would they want with toys?
In my defense, I had covered the tragedy live, for many hours, on both WELI and KC101, and with my own two small children in the studio with me. At one point I couldn't look at them. So here it was a week later and it had all taken a toll on me. I wanted to forget, even if only for a few hours. Surely Newtown did too. Stop reminding them.
On Thursday, January 3, I got around to reaching out to John, apologizing for not processing exactly what he was doing and then explaining that I had gone on vacation right around that time for two weeks. He explained that he had written a song for the people of Newtown, that he wanted me to spread the word that he'd be filming a video for it on the West Haven Green and all were invited. Then I watched the video. My loss. I'd have loved to have been there. I share the video with you, now, here. Please watch it until the end. And thank you, John Ciambriello.
