Episode 01 / Sandy Hook / Dear World

Jackie & Audrey

On healing, friendship, and honoring the ones we've lost

Salt Lake City, Utah · Both 17

I would give you your childhood back.

Jackie on what she would give Audrey if she could.

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About This Story

Episode 01

Jackie and Audrey speak with unusual honesty about what it means to grow up after violence. Their story holds space for grief, friendship, and the ways healing can look different for different people.

Across family support, music, powerlifting, and advocacy, they insist on a truth that runs through the whole project: survivors are more than what happened to them.

The Participants

Jackie & Audrey

Participant

Jackie

Age 17

Jackie describes herself as reliable and steady, someone the people she loves can count on.

Perfect day: Sleeping in and hanging out with the people she loves.
Healing: Powerlifting became a grounding form of therapy that helps relieve her anxiety.
Support: She feels safe talking with her family, especially her mother and sisters.
Perspective: She wants the world to move beyond sympathy and toward real solutions.

This trauma is like a scar. The wound will heal over in time and you will figure out how to live with it.

Participant

Audrey

Age 17

Audrey loves her own drive and motivation, and she feels most powerful when she is writing and sharing her story.

Guilty pleasure: Rewatching the 1995 Pride and Prejudice over and over again.
Fear: Loud noises.
Healing: Music helps carry her through the hardest days.
Perspective: She was forced into adulthood early and refuses to be reduced to trauma.

I am not just my trauma. I am so much more than what happened to me.

Watch The Series

Episode Films

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Story Moments

Visual Story

Audrey loves her own drive and motivation. Her guilty pleasure is rewatching Pride and Prejudice from 1995 over and over again.

A portrait from Jackie and Audrey's episode

Jackie says her family has been her rock, especially her mother and sisters who understand what she has carried for the last ten years.

Still image from Jackie and Audrey's episode

Jackie found an unconventional path to healing in powerlifting, while Audrey turns to music when the hardest days return.

What They Want To Say

Voices From The Episode

To Other Survivors

I was in your shoes ten years ago. It hurts me that nothing has changed in the legislature. I want to hug you and hold you and tell you that you are valid as a person and that what happened to you does not define you. While time does not necessarily heal all, you will learn to live with this, and you will survive.

Audrey

Audrey to students in Uvalde beginning their grieving process.

To The World

All of you saw what happened, but you didn't do anything about it. Instead of offering sympathy, offer solutions; whether through coping skills, activism, or change.

Jackie

Looking Ahead