Ana Luisa Frable

life after sandy hook

Dec. 14, 2012 started as a typical school day in Newtown, Connecticut. At least, Miami Palmetto Senior High School junior, Ana Luisa Frable, remembers it that way.

Born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Frable moved to the United States in 2010 after her father received a job transfer. She first lived in Illinois before moving to the southwestern part of Connecticut in 2012. “Newtown is a small town, so everybody knows each other; pretty much everybody is close. Once you were down on the main street, everything was nearby. It was very cute and very quiet to me,” Frable said. In third grade, Frable’s small town became the center of gun violence that targeted students and teachers at Sandy

Hook Elementary School. On Dec. 14, 2012, gunman Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people, including 20 children between the ages of six and seven, as well as six teachers.

The Sandy Hook shooting became known as one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. As Frable attended O’Head Meadow Elementary, a school extremely close to Sandy Hook, she experienced the lockdowns and surrounding events from that day firsthand. “It just felt like a normal third grade day. I just remember hearing them saying over the loudspeaker, ‘Oh you’re going into lockdown’ [and] thinking that it was a drill, but it wasn’t,” Frable said. “We were in lockdown for a couple hours in the dark, not knowing what was happening.”

In the aftermath of the shooting, Frable learned that a friend from her swimming team, Daniel Barden, tragically died at the hands of gun violence. In an effort to get away from the chaos in Newtown, Frable and her family left town and spent the weekend in New York City. However, the massacre did not leave Frable untouched.

“I couldn’t sleep alone for a couple of nights, for a couple of months actually. I went to a psychiatrist to help me get over it, but it took me a while to finally be able to sleep alone. I either cried all night, or I had to sleep with my brother or parents,” Frable said. “Even today, almost every single lockdown, even if it’s a drill, my heart beats really fast... All that, just the memories come flooding back, and I always have to keep that in mind, like, ‘Hey, you’re...safe, but just keep an eye out.’”

Almost immediately after the Sandy Hook shooting claimed the lives of so many, parents of the children killed on Dec. 14 created a nonprofit organization, known as the Sandy Hook Promise, to address gun violence in schools. As a strong supporter of gun control and in memory of the innocent lives lost, Frable signed up for the organization and donates on a regular basis to continue her advocacy for gun control. Moreover, she has spoken at several Sandy Hook memorials recalling her experiences from that day, and she often speaks to friends and family advocating for change. For Frable, answers to her healing emerged in the form of advocacy, gun safety and community building.

“[Ana Luisa] has a strong passion and drive for

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gun control. I know that in the future, she might want to do something to help people who have gone through something [like Sandy Hook],” Frable’s close friend and Palmetto junior Olivia Ware said. “If someone speaks negatively about guns or gun violence, she will speak up.” Every year, on the anniversary of Sandy Hook, Frable wears a green ribbon and posts on social media to remember the lives lost and remind people of the dangers that guns can pose to society. Frable stayed in Connecticut for four more years before moving to Wisconsin in 2016. Then, a year and a half later, she moved to Miami. Not long after her move, on Feb. 14, 2018, gunman Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people and injured 17 more at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. With yet another deadly school shooting so close to home, the trauma from Sandy Hook came rushing back to Frable almost immediately, but this time in a different way. “In eighth grade, when the Stoneman Douglas shooting happened, [my advocacy for gun control] really sparked. When you’re little, you don’t really pay attention. But, I just remember it hitting me and saying, ‘How did this happen again? There has to be some sort of change because I don’t want anyone else to experience this.’”

In the future, Frable hopes to attend more rallies that promote gun control and plans to start an organization in college that would focus on gun control laws and gun safety for schools.

“I would love to advocate for safer schools, and I hope we can get stricter laws when it comes to guns in this country,” Frable said.

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