Carlisle's Diary

The Aftermath

Dear Diary: April 28, 2013

I have to say that I cannot be more proud of my granddaughter. Nessie has grown into a loving, caring, brave young woman. The story she told of how she survived the school shooting was nothing short of miraculous. And on top of that she actually risked her own safety to try and help her classmates. We are all very proud of her and also just so glad that she's safe. I also thought it was cute to see her snuggle with Bella. It reminded all of us of when she was younger and she would always want to be and play with mommy.

The following day, Alice and Jasper arrived back home. The very first thing Alice did when she stepped through the door was run over to Nessie and give her a huge hug. She even forgot her shopping bags for a while. Jasper also walked over and gave Nessie a hug. Jasper has been showing more and more emotion. We are proud of him. After all the hugging and greetings were over, Alice started handing out gifts to everyone. I received a beautiful chiseled marble game of chess, Esme got a new book on crocheting new patterns and designs plus a beautiful dress, the rest of the boys received a ton of different Japanese traditional clothes, while the ladies received dresses and kimonos. But it was Nessie that received the most beautiful kimono of them all. Hers was a rich red with real gold threading for all the embroidery on it. She loved it!

Also, we finally received all of the news on the aftermath of the shooting. There was only one shooter who Nessie identified as being Frank Jordan. His father was ex-military and kept all sorts of different guns in a storage locker behind the house; he was also an avid hunter and was teaching his son how to be a man. Unfortunately, no one really paid attention to what Frank wanted or who he wanted to be friends with. So after being constantly ignored and disregarded, Frank had enough and took his rage out on his father who he hurt badly and the students and faculty at Hanover High School. All said and done, 33 people were killed or died later and more than 40 were injured; with at least 4 being paralyzed in some way shape or form. In Nessie's class alone, 7 people were killed including Mrs. Lounds. The FBI said it was the deadliest school shooting in American History. It surpassed what happened in Virginia Tech only by one person.

The school has been totally boarded up, students are still recovering. Esme has taken over homeschooling Nessie, Seth, Jacob, and Leah. But Dartmouth has very generously given a whole wing of one of their buildings for the high school students to finish out the school year. The town board has decided to destroy the school and build a new one a half mile or so down the road. A memorial will be placed in its place. Nessie we have a feeling will want to return to school. Her savior and new friend Michelle comes to our house every day to be taught by Esme. She doesn't want to go to a school type setting and wants to spend more time with Nessie. She admitted that she always admired Nessie and wanted to be friends with her; they have a lot in common and spend a lot of time together. Michelle doesn't seem to pay much attention to our subtle differences. She just enjoys spending time with Nessie and absolutely raves about Esme's cooking. You can imagine that has made Esme incredibly happy. So the FANTASTIC FOUR have become the FAB FIVE!

We've had to deal with a lot of media from around the country. They've staked out the hospital to talk to anyone; doctors, nurses, even janitors just to get the latest scoop on whichever patient. It annoys all of us to no end that we can't have any privacy for our patients. And my whole family has been on edge because we're not big on being the center of any kind of attention under the circumstances and now we have the whole country "eyeballing us" as Jacob says. It annoys him and his pack as well because they can't even find a place to phase in the woods since they don't know where there'll be a hidden camera. Tanya and Kate have invited us to come spend some time in Alaska so we could get away from all this mayhem for a while. We're all seriously considering it, except for Nessie. She says that she doesn't want to run away. That this is our town, our home, and we shouldn't let some spineless reporters run us of town. Those were her words actually. Verbatim.