Mark Barden, whose son Daniel was killed in the Sandy Hook school shooting, holds a picture of his son during an event on the National Mall calling for action on preventing gun violence in September 2023 in Washington, D.C. (WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES)
By Jennifer Gerson, The 19th*, September 27, 2023
Mark Barden describes his then-7-year-old son Daniel as having had a “profound sense of compassion. He literally looked out for everybody. He wanted to make sure everyone was okay.” When the family would take walks together, Daniel would pick up worms he saw on the sidewalk and move them to safety, tucking them between the blades of grass to try to keep them out of harm’s way. It was actions like these that earned him his family nickname, “The Caretaker of All Living Things.”
Daniel was one of the 26 people who were killed during the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. He would have turned 18 today.
“We miss him every single day and we think about what he would be doing now and what he would look like now that his last year of high school would be starting now,” Barden told The 19th. “I just have to bury my head in this work and continue to focus on bringing that message and that kindness to all the other little worms out there so they don’t burn in the sun.”
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