As any parent could imagine, the death of her daughter put JoAnn Bacon into a mental fog that lasted for months. She had just lost her 6-year-old daughter, Charlotte, her youngest child, in the shooting tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary school. Her daughter was one of 20 children who were killed in that school shooting by a 20-year-old man, Adam Lanza.
The shooting tragedy occurred on December 14, 2012 and it wasn’t until February 22 that JoAnn and her husband, Joel, began to change their mindset. February 22 would have been their daughter’s birthday. Their friends had arranged an event to recognize the acts of kindness of small children. It was to be developed into a program in Charlotte’s owner, known as Newtown Kindness.
After seeing 100 people come together into a small room to celebrate their daughter, JoAnn had the following to say.
“It was hard thinking about what her birthday should have been and what it turned into. It really did our hearts good. It was a turning point.”
It was at that moment that the Bacons knew that they wanted to memorialize their daughter in a way that represented her and the short time that she was with them. They didn’t exactly know how they were going to do it, but they wanted it to include dogs.
Charlotte had a strong love of animals, and that was especially true of dogs. You can see it clearly, even in the words of her obituary.
“Charlotte never met an animal she didn’t love and since the age of two wanted to be a veterinarian.”
She also had a regular routine with Lily, the families yellow Labrador retriever.
“Each morning before school, she’d lure Lily into her bedroom and tell her to wait there until she got home. I’d go looking for Lily later and realize she was in Charlotte’s room.”
JoAnn and Joel had already published a children’s picture book, Good Dogs, Great Listeners. In that story, Lily, Charlotte and a litter of puppies make up the characters and her parents made sure that the illustrations pictured Charlotte as her parents remembered her, including the details of her clothes and bedroom. Each copy of the book is wrapped in a single pink bow.
“It was really important for us to capture Charlotte how she was. We didn’t want her to be a face of a tragedy. We wanted her to be remembered for how she lived.”
Charlotte was not the only child in the Bacon household. They also had a son, named Guy, who was nine years old when the shootings occurred. He also was interested in honoring his sister and finding a way to deal with the grief. It wasn’t until January that he was able to get back on the school bus after the shootings. Upon his arrival at Reed Intermediate School, he was greeted by comfort dogs.
The handlers for the comfort dogs carried trading cards for the dogs. It wasn’t long before Guy was rushing to go to school early to visit the dogs and to make sure he could collect the cards from all the dogs who were visiting the school. This activity did not escape the notice of JoAnn.
“What used to be a safe environment had become something very different. But then within months he wanted to get to school early.”
Ken Murdoch, a board member of Newtown Kindness said that the therapy dogs did help them to bring about a sense of normalcy in a time of chaos.
It wasn’t until the end of the school year that the Bacons realized how much of an impact the dogs had on Guy. The handler of a Boston terrier named Kona got in touch with JoAnn to let her know what took place. Guy and Kona had grown quite close during the school year and the handler wanted to get permission to visit Guy during the summer break. It was seeing how much of an impact the therapy dogs had on their son that led the Bacons to help him to publish his own book, “The Dogs of Newtown.” It also led to the launch of Charlotte’s Litter, a program that advocated the use of therapy dogs in schools and other facilities.
“It’s amazing how all of these elements fell into place,” JoAnn says. “We didn’t have a grand idea. In so many ways, we just feel like Charlotte is guiding us through a process of grieving and honoring her life and our grief.”
JoAnn is able to work with school administrators through Charlotte’s Litter to identify the ways that therapy dogs could benefit children in the school system. Some of the benefits that may be available through therapy dogs include boosting self-esteem, preventing bullying and even promoting literacy!
“We recognized that there doesn’t need to be a mass casualty incident for dogs to be helping kids,” JoAnn says. “Kids are facing loss and trauma in school every day in some ways-some literally, some socially.”
Although they have come a long way, JoAnn admits that there are “ebbs and flows” to their healing process. Running Charlotte’s Litter, however, has helped them to feel closer to Charlotte and to honor her in a way that she would love. They believe that Charlotte would have enjoyed being part of the organization as well. In fact, it is one of the primary reasons that the Bacon family continues to do it, to feel connected with their little girl. In the words of JoAnn, “It allows us to continue to be her parents.”
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