By: Katie Gira

I remember the sun.

Say Something Week stops me in my tracks because I remember exactly where I was the morning of December 14, 2012.

My one and only child, James, was in preschool. It was a sunny morning in the sleepy suburban Chicago town of Palos Park, Illinois—a place strikingly similar to Newtown, Connecticut.

I remember the sun because I was on a treadmill in a gym when headlines on television showed worried elementary school children and heroic teachers fleeing an elementary school that looked a lot like my son’s preschool on a tree-lined street… states away in Connecticut.

I remember the sun because I was next to a window. A woman next to me gasped and said, to no one in particular, something along the lines of, “Jesus God… I think someone shot up an elementary school.”

I couldn’t see it yet.

Until I did.

I was 37, and the privilege of motherhood hadn’t come easy. That season of life—before my son was off to first grade—was tender and happy and boring and exactly what I had fought hard for.

I remember I planned to fix myself up after my treadmill walk. I had brought my makeup bag and a change of clothes—an “ugly” sweater I had worn for years when the theme arose.

The red and white sweater boasted a full-size, fluffy, knit Santa doll smack in the middle of the chest. Around it, a sequined, battery-lit Christmas tree blinked.

It was ugly, alright.

A week or so before, I had put it on for a party. As I went to kiss James goodbye, he lit up, jumped from his toys, and said,

“Oh mommy! That is a very, very nice sweater for the party! You’re going to be the prettiest person at the party!”

And just like that, I was.

So no, I didn’t care how silly it looked when I showed up to his class in that tacky sweater. I wanted my four-year-old to beam when the prettiest person at the party walked into that classroom.

Only, I never did put on any makeup. I would have cried it all off—listening to the car radio as the reality of what was unfolding in Connecticut became clear.

So far from Connecticut—and yet I was there.

And here is the truth I have struggled to hold since:

How excruciatingly lucky I got that morning.

I got to walk into that classroom. I got to hear my son sing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. I got to watch his small hands carefully pour water into a cup for me; his whole body focused on doing it just right.

I got to be “the prettiest person at the party” in the eyes of a four-year-old boy who still believed in the magic of his mom… and Santa… and life itself.

Parents of twenty children woke up that morning, packed lunches, zipped coats, and said goodbye—never knowing it would be the last time they would hear their child’s voice.

Parents who will never again be seen that way—through the eyes of a child who thinks they are the most beautiful person in the room.

There is nothing fair about that. There is nothing that makes sense about that.

The distance between Palos Park, Illinois and Newtown, Connecticut should have meant something.

It didn’t.

Because once you are a parent, you understand—on a cellular level—that it could have been your child. Your classroom. Your morning.

What haunts me most… is not just what happened that day.

It’s what was missed before it.

A young man did not become capable of that level of harm in a single moment. There were signs. There were signals. There were places where something might have been seen, heard, held differently.

And they weren’t.

Not in time.

That truth is the genesis of Sandy Hook Promise.

Some years later, in 2017, when I had the opportunity to say yes to becoming the Sandy Hook Promise building lead in a high school of over 4,000 students, I didn’t say yes lightly. This was no obligatory agreement to lead another committee.

I said yes because I know in my very being—that school safety is not about reacting to the unthinkable.

It is about noticing what is quiet. It is about creating cultures where no student slips through the cracks of our busyness, our systems, or our assumptions. It is about making sure that when something feels off, someone feels empowered—and responsible enough—to say something.

In 2023, I expanded that work into iCan Dream Center—not as another program, but to lead systemic change in how we think about school safety outside of our silos.

Because this work cannot live in a binder. It cannot be a once-a-year training. It cannot depend on one passionate adult in a building.

It has to be how we operate. How we connect. How we listen. How we respond. How we build belonging every single day.

Say Something Week stops me in my tracks every year.

Not because it is a campaign.

But because it is a gut check reminder.

A reminder of what is at stake. A reminder of what is possible. And a reminder that the belonging work we are called, compelled, to do—quietly, consistently, intentionally—matters more than we ever fully know.

If you are an educator, a leader, a parent, a student—

Just this week, pay a little closer attention. Ask one more question. Notice one more student. Create one more moment where it is safe to be seen.

And then, let’s remember to shine the light of that December 14th, 2012 sun into the corners of schools and communities that hold those among us who hurt. Who beg for us to protect time to Say Something.