x 'REAL HEROS DON'T WEAR CAPES': Sandy Hook mother who lost 6-year-old daughter in massacre sends heart-wrenching message to returning students, faculty as her son returns to school — 'It takes guts to be a teacher'

 

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Nelba Marquez-Greene and her husband, Jimmy Greene, grieve for their daughter, Ana Grace. When it came time to send their son back to school, Marquez-Greene said, ‘I thought I was going to lose my mind.’

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The heartbroken mother of a Newtown massacre victim sent her town's valiant teachers a wrenching back-to-school message.
Nelba Marquez-Greene, whose 6-year-old daughter Ana Grace was one of the 20 first-graders slaughtered with six Sandy Hook Elementary School staffers, said, "My wish for you is that same courage, faith, and love."

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"It takes guts to be a teacher," Marquez-Greene wrote in a letter published in Education Week. "Six brave women gave their lives trying to protect their students at Sandy Hook. Other teachers were forced to run from the building, stepping over the bodies of their friends and colleagues, and they came right back to work."
Marquez-Greene, whose son escaped the carnage when Adam Lanza went on his rampage with a Bushmaster rifle, added, "While I pray you will never find yourself in the position of the teachers at Sandy Hook, your courage will support students like my son, who have lived through traumas no child should have to."
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Marquez-Greene also urged teachers to keep a lookout for other budding Adam Lanzas, the "students who are left out and overlooked, like the isolated young man who killed my daughter."

"At some point he was a young, impressionable student, often sitting all alone at school," she wrote.