Allan Appel Photo
Newtown resident Paige Kousidis and kids Yanni and Angella at vigil on the Green.
Bearing white candles sheltered against the breeze, hundreds of New Haveners sent their light and prayers across the Green Saturday night north and west to Newtown in a support for the families devastated by Friday’s massacre, including one family in their midst.
The vigil was organized by Interfaith Cooperative Ministries. The group’s president, John Gage, initiated the proceedings with 28 peals of mourning that sounded from the bell tower of his United Church on the Green.
The reverberations reached the solemn crowd gathered between the New Haven Green’s lighted Christmas tree and the flagpole. Paige Kousidis, who lives two minutes from the Sandy Hook elementary school, was there; she began to sob. She was comforted by her two kids Yanni and Angella, 11 and 12, both of whom are graduates of the school.
“I’m feeling the need to go up to people and say, ‘I’m from Sandy Hook,’” said Kousidis.
That’s why she was on the Green with her kids, holding candles and wondering about the fate of the teachers and kids at the school, many of whom she and her family know well.
Revs. Gage and Stackhouse in foreground, Chaplain Kugler and Rabbi Brockman in back.
Prayers, poetry, and meditation were led by Gage; Imam Omer Bajwa, the coordinator of Muslim life at Yale; Sharon Kugler, Yale’s chaplain; Rev. Shelly Stackhouse of the Church of the Redeemer; Rev. Tracy Russell Johnson of Newhallville’s St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church; and Rabbi Herb Brockman of Mishkan Israel.
Brockman struck a Hanukkah theme, saying the tragedy should be a light that is a stepping stone to love and peace.
In remarks that came the closest of all in descending from poetry and prayer to policy, he added, “Such a tragedy should not go unanswered. No amount of pressure should deter us from what President Obama called ‘meaningful action,’” he said.
As the clerics led the prayers, Angella stroked her mother’s back and Yanni held her hand.
On the morning of the massacre, Kousidis said, she was in New Haven to be near her husband, who was undergoing open-heart surgery at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Her kids were staying with relatives in Norwalk.
She was in a waiting room at the hospital during her husband’s operation when she received a call that Sandy Hook elementary was in lock-down.
Lock-downs were not frequent but had happened before. Kousidis decided to find out what was going on, so she called a friend who is a staffer at the school. That’s when she learned what was happening.
“‘I’m here, it’s awful, please pray for us,’” Kousidis quoted her friend as saying.
She called her in-laws in Norwalk and told them to turn off the TV and Internet. She didn’t want her kids hearing about the evolving tragedy except from her. On Saturday morning, with her husband out of danger and the operation over, she told her kids.
“Ironically, Yanni didn’t want to come [to the vigil],” Kousidis reported. He said he wanted to be with his own community (They are staying in a hotel in town as the husband/father’s recovery continues).
After the moving ceremony, with the reading of psalms and scripture by local clerics, he had changed his mind. “It makes it not as bad,” Yanni said.
His younger sister put it even more to the heart: “I like being here because everyone here is sad. And we can be sad together.”
As the proceedings concluded, Rev. Stackhouse said, “We have people from Newtown here tonight. Hold them [near],” she said.
And people did.
Rev Gage said in the weeks ahead he’ll be organizing a concert to benefit the families in Newtown.
East Rock Alderman Justin Elicker, who attended the vigil, said he and other aldermen are drafting a resolution expressing New Haven’s formal condolences. Still in draft, it will be presented to the Board of Aldermen Monday night, he added.
Ward (right) at his pre-vigil vigil. Tim Stambaugh-Walter, 12, attended with his parents from Seymour.
“My Son is 5. He Dodged a Bullet”
Energy consultant Carrington Ward of Wooster Square organized his own pre-vigil vigil at the fountain near the corner of Chapel and Church an hour before the 6 p.m. community event.
He said his wife works at the VA in West Haven and has colleagues who commute from Newtown.
When MoveOn.org sent an email out for people to organize local vigils, he responded. “My son is 5. He dodged a bullet by living 30 miles to the east. We could be living in Newtown. That hit me directly. I’m very angry to have this [mass shooting] happen again” Ward said.
As a dozen people gathered around him, he said, “I could talk policy now but it would come out of anger. One of the things that got me out was hearing over [and over] again that I should sit at home and grieve. It’s important to express it in company,” he said.