Sandy Hook Mom Pens Moving Letter to Jacob Hall's Mom

'Jacob was your superhero. Dylan was my Superman': Nicole Hockley to Renae Hall
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 6, 2016 7:31 AM CDT
Sandy Hook Mom Pens Moving Letter to Jacob Hall's Mom
Nicole Hockley participates in Independent Lens' “Newtown” panel during the PBS Television Critics Association summer press tour on July 29, 2016, in Beverly Hills, Calif.   (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

No one ever really knows another's pain over the loss of a loved one, but Nicole Hockley probably has, more than most, a "sense of the journey" Renae Hall is now taking. Hockley is the mom of Dylan Hockley, a 6-year-old who died in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, and she penned a letter this week to Hall, the mom of 6-year-old Jacob Hall, who died Saturday after being shot at his school in Townville, SC. "As a mother and grieving parent, I am here for you now and always, in any way I am able," she writes in the letter, per People. "My heart is with you." She describes how both boys were born six weeks early and how they died at the same age, in the arms of caring protectors, as well as the "anguish" she felt upon learning of Jacob's death, ABC News notes.

Hockley, who co-founded the anti-gun violence nonprofit Sandy Hook Promise, also touches on that issue in her letter, saying she feels "deeply ashamed" for relaxing somewhat when there were initially no fatalities in the Townville shooting and accepting it as just "another day in America." "For me to be complacent about gun violence, even for a moment, is unforgivable," she writes. And she admits there's one difference between herself and Hall: Hall has found forgiveness and some peace in her faith, while Hockley says she's "still mad at God." But Hockley adds she still thinks "there are good people in the world," as well as one immutable similarity between their sons. "Jacob was your superhero," the Connecticut mom writes. "Dylan was my Superman." Read her entire letter at the New York Daily News. (More Sandy Hook stories.)

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