Why so many innocents — again?

The parents of the Amish children killed in a Nickel Mines schoolhouse six years ago learned of Friday's Connecticut school shootings when they picked up their newspapers or heard the news from their own children.

Their hearts bled. Memories surfaced of the 2006 shootings here that killed five of their girls and injured five others.

The Amish families say they would long to offer a hand on the shoulder, and shared tears, to the families of the 20 children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

They have walked the difficult path these "English" families now must follow.

And though they would like to offer special guidance, they can't.

They know the stark truth: No words, no magic phrases, no advice will prepare the Connecticut families for the heartbreaking days that lie ahead.

"I wouldn't want to tell them that in three or four months, the grief is going to be just as hard, or harder," one father said quietly. All of the parents interviewed for this story asked that their names not be used. 

He lost two daughters in the Nickel Mines schoolhouse. As he talks, a December wind blows across his porch, setting off a mournful tune on a hanging chime he was given in memory of the little girls.

The only way to get through the difficult journey is to just take it, to live it, and to lean on faith, the Nickel Mines families say.

Said an Amish mother: "Time does heal. But I can say that now. Everybody just has to go through this grief. You can't get around it."

Said a father: "As time goes on, you realize more and more. This is a fact. At first it might seem like a dream but we have to accept it.

"With the help of others in the community, and with God's help, you will go on."

It's been an emotional few days for some of the Nickel Mines Amish families.

Some said the news of another schoolhouse shooting was simply  unbelievable, even though they lived through a similar event, complete with news crews and a worldwide audience focused on their personal grief.

"They were talking about children, about 20 kids, and I thought, 'Well, that doesn't make sense,' " said one mother of a daughter who died in the Nickel Mines shooting. "I was like, 'This can't be true!' "

Said a father: "Once I found out it was little children, that kind of hit me. You have to think what these families have to go through — they are in shock, they have to work through the grief. And the anger, they have to work through that."

Seven local Amish families lost or had daughters injured when troubled truck driver Charlie Roberts took a gun into their children's schoolhouse on Oct. 2, 2006.

Like the Connecticut school shooter, Roberts turned the gun on himself after the shootings. Roberts' rampage was sparked by the death of his newborn daughter years earlier, according to notes he left explaining that he was filled with hate toward himself and toward God, as well as "unimaginable emptiness."

As they have following other notorious shootings across the country, the Nickel Mines families are thinking of reaching out to the parents affected by the latest tragedy.

Some are planning to write letters to the Connecticut parents.

A Honey Brook man, Jerry Feister, who owns a farming business, has invited the Nickel Mines families to write the letters, and volunteered to pick them up and deliver them to Connecticut by Christmas Eve.

Some of the families say they plan to write. But they are at a loss about what to say.

One father said he sat down Monday morning to begin a letter but couldn't get past the first line.

"The grieving process is very personal. Right now, they're in shock, so what can I write?" he said.

Human touch, and a shared grief, would communicate better.

"I know we'd cry a while," said one mother, saying what she would do if she met the Connecticut families. "But I don't know what we'd say. It's not the time to say a lot of words. But we certainly can feel for them."

A father recounted the outpouring of support from friends and sympathetic strangers during the days after the Nickel Mines shootings.

One encounter stuck with him. It was when a man, with tears in his eyes, came up to him, shook his head, and said, "I just don't know what to say."

That, the father said, "felt as good as anything."

He added that would be his outreach to Connecticut parents.

"I'm thinking, for them, a handshake or a hand on their shoulders would do more good," he said.

The Amish parents all said it was their faith, and God's help, that got them through the dark days following Nickel Mines. They hope the Connecticut parents have a faith to lean on as well.

Horrible things sometimes happen, and it's the only way to get through them, they said.

"Evil will always happen to the end of time," a father said.

"Tragedy happens, but with time, God's love transcends evil," he added.

The Amish hope that the Connecticut families can find forgiveness for the shooter, Adam Lanza. The local Amish families' immediate willingness to forgive Roberts, a notion they say they have to work on and still return to regularly, caught the world's attention after the Nickel Mines shooting.

"If we didn't forgive Charlie, we're going down the same road he did," one mother said. "He didn't want to forgive."

Said another mother, "He lost his child and turned to violence."

Another mother said, "I just hope they can try and forgive. I just hope that they know God."

Time is the Connecticut families' best ally, said the Amish parents, even though it is hard to be patient, and to let it pass.

Said one father quietly, "This is not just going to be over in a couple of days. It could be years or months.

"Now, it's six years but we're back to a normal, a new normal."
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