Daniel Barden was fearless in his pursuit of happiness and life.
He was a budding athlete, a member of the swim team and an avid soccer player.
And he had earned his ripped jeans and two missing front teeth, his parents said.
“Words really cannot express what a special boy Daniel was. Such a light,” Mark and Jackie Barden wrote, recalling their son.
“Always smiling, unfailingly polite, incredibly affectionate, fair and so thoughtful towards others, imaginative in play, both intelligent and articulate in conversation: in all, a constant source of laughter and joy.”
Seven-year-old Daniel was in his grade one class at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012 when a gunman broke in and shot and killed him and 19 other children and six adults at the place.
Since Daniel’s death, Mark Barden has become co-founder and CEO of the Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund (SHPAF), which is dedicated to sparing families the pain of losing children to gun violence.
His 20-year-old daughter Natalie — who was 10 when her brother’s life was taken — has also turned into an advocate against gun violence. She and other young people fighting gun violence shared their thoughts with President Joe Biden at a forum in October 2022.
“As I saw more and more families shattered by gun violence, I made the difficult decision to start speaking out and joined a gun violence prevention club at school,” Natalie said in a post made in memory of her brother Daniel on the SHPAF site. “I forced myself to get even more involved, caring less about the pain it would cause me. I felt like if I didn’t, then more people were going to die.”
* Adapted from The Wall Street Journal’s tribute for Sandy Hook victims and Natalie Barden’s tribute to her brother Daniel on the Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund site.
