This article contains sensitive and heartbreaking topics; please take care while reading.
Melissa Joan Hart shared a deeply personal story on her Instagram account about the mass shooting that took place at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday, March 27. Six lives were lost at the Covenant School; three children, and three adults, and countless lives were forever changed because of those losses.
Hart spoke about the experience she shared with her husband on Monday as they were driving to conferences; her children weren’t in school due to those meetings, and she also shared the heartbreaking truth that it wasn’t the first time she had been in the vicinity of a school shooting — which says it all. While Hart assured that her family was safe, she was moved by what they’d experienced not just once but twice.
Alongside her family, Hart moved to Nashville from Connecticut, where her children went to a school not too far away from Sandy Hook, the school that suffered a devastating loss in 2012 when 26 people, 20 of them children, lost their lives. That means that the tragedy in Nashville was the second time Hart’s family dealt with something so heartwrenching on a personal level.
“For those of you who know, I live in Nashville… My kids go to school right next to a school where there was a shooting today. We moved here from Connecticut, where we were in a school a little ways down from Sandy Hook, so this is our second experience with a school shooting with our kids being in close proximity.”
In Nashville, Hart shared her story of something being off when she noticed a road they usually took was closed, only blocked off by one officer; she tried to write off anything serious. However, when she saw a group of young children attempting to cross a highway from a wooded area, she knew she had to do something.
“My husband and I were on our way to school for conferences and, luckily, our kids weren’t in today, and we helped a class of kindergarteners across a busy highway. They were climbing out of the woods. They were trying to escape the shooter situation at their school. So we helped all these tiny little kids cross the road and get their teachers over there, and we helped a mom reunite with her children and I just — I don’t know what to say anymore. Enough is enough. Just pray. Pray for the families.”
In a chat with Ashleigh Banfield for NewsNation, Hart spoke more about the ordeal, including that the teachers were attempting to keep their eyes down and focused, likely to avoid a deep upset in front of the children. It goes without saying that teachers wake every day and realize that their every action will impact the students they teach; holding it together in such horrific circumstances is a bravery we can’t put into words.
“We got them across the street as fast as we could. The teachers didn’t want to make eye contact. I think it’s because they were trying not to break down.”
Hart also said that, just as a bystander, it was traumatic — and to imagine the families who got life-changing phone calls on Monday afternoon, there’s not an emotion strong enough to try to describe that. She asked for those who watched the video she shared to send prayers to their families, and her caption for the video was something like a promise: “Prayers today, Action tomorrow.”
“It was so traumatic, and I was just a bystander, I’m just there trying to help in any way I can. To know that there were parents last night who went home without their children … it is just unfathomable.”
A vigil honoring the lives lost on Monday took place Wednesday afternoon in Nashville, giving those who are in mourning an opportunity to come together and honor those they’ll never forget. Stories have begun being shared about Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, William Kinney, Cynthia Peak, Katherine Koonce, and Mike Hill, and their loved ones will undeniably continue to honor them throughout all of the days of their lives.
