Seven Autumns of Mourning in Newtown

Seven years ago, in Newtown, Connecticut, Halloween was canceled. We were working to dig ourselves out of the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy, finding detours through a maze of roads closed by downed trees, keeping kids busy through a full week of “storm day” school closings, and improvising meals on hot plates as we waited for full power to return.

Newtown normally hosts Halloween along its lovely downtown thoroughfare of colonial-era meetinghouses, churches, and historic homes, all radiating from “the flagpole,” the landmark that pulls us all together, the center of things. The homeowners go all out decorating their facades, and welcome all comers. The Episcopal church hosts a pumpkin-carving contest that runs the week before, and on Halloween night, scores of carved jack-o’-lanterns light up the corner of Main Street and Church Hill Road.

But in 2012, all of this was canceled. My family was a few minutes’ drive from the flagpole then, in a rented house in the village of Sandy