So just if you can, I mean tell me.
About is there anything since?
2012 every year that this date comes up,
how do you? Process this event.
How do you continue processing
it and and moving forward?
I I know you've got the great foundation
but just share a little bit with me.
It's it's amazing after nine years how
raw and fresh the pain is, you've had.
If you've had a child murdered.
You know that the pain never goes away
and that you're faced with it every day.
I still cry every day, but I think
that I process my pain through action.
And the amazing thing about
what I do in going out there and
sharing Jesse's story and.
Creating programming that.
Can reduce and prevent.
The issues that we're seeing,
including violence and substance
abuse and mental illness.
All that I do, all that I give,
I get back in healing,
which is really a beautiful thing.
And what I've realized after
nine years that that my service
is a big part of my healing.
Tell us about Jesse Lewis. Choose love.
Jesse Lewis choose Love is an organization
that I started following Jesse's murder.
I had come back to this little farmhouse
where I raised my two boys and found
a message that Jesse had left on our
kitchen chalkboard and it was three words,
nurturing, healing,
love and I made this simple realization
really that if the shooter had been
able to give and receive nurturing.
Healing love that the tragedy would
never have happened and I thought about.
The Incredible act of courage that
Jesse did in his final moments
when he stood up to the shooter.
Uh, when the when the gun ran
out of bullets and called for his
classmates to run and ultimately
he's credited with saving nine of
his classmates lives before he died,
I realized that.
In order to honor his memory and in
order to be part of the solution that I
would have to spend the rest of my life
spreading this message of nurturing,
healing,
love and being part of the solution to
the issues that continue to escalate.
We've had 350 school shootings in the
past nine years since Sandy Hook.
We've had 28 this year alone, and.
Every single one is 100% preventable.
I realized that after Sandy Hook
and then I took a look at the
approaches that we had in place.
Since then they are the same approaches
that we use today and I realized
obviously it's not enough to be reactive.
It's not enough to harden the schools
to do active shooter drills to put
in see something, say something,
programs all of that is good,
but clearly it's not enough.
We have to address the root cause of
these these issues, the the the shootings,
but I'm talking even beyond school shootings.
The issues that are plaguing our
children and us big kids today.
Substance abuse, suicide,
mental illness, anxiety, depression,
violence.
We've had a 30% increase in homicides
last year and that is on our streets.
Of America,
we've had a 30% increase in overdoses.
One of my best friends lost her only
son a few months ago to an overdose and
and a lot of this we really need to
face by going back to the root cause,
which is pain and the ability that
we have to face our pain.
To learn from it, to grow through it,
to be strengthened by it and then
to use what we've learned.
To help other people, I really,
truly believe after nine years
that that's why we're here.
But here's the thing we need to
learn some essential life skills
in order to be able to do that.
And that is relationship skills,
emotional management, coping skills.
These are skills and tools were not
born with that. We have to learn.
It's our formula at work.
It's having the courage to be grateful
even when things don't go your way.
It's the courage to forgive,
even if the person who hurts you isn't.
Sorry, doesn't care,
may not know because forgiveness
for some
of us is the only way to
take our personal power back.
And it's the courage to step outside
of our busyness and distraction,
even our own pain and suffering
to help someone else.
That is the formula for choosing love.
This is the formula that is the
foundation of everything that we do
with the choose love movement and
it's the formula that I practice.
Every single day and it has been the
root of my own personal healing as well.
You I really appreciate on such short
notice so that it very difficult.
Every day I'm sure it's very difficult,
but I I really do appreciate.