The cinema complex in Aurora, Colo., reopened last week, six months after a gunman killed 12 patrons, wounded 58 and left deep scars on a community still struggling to recover. "Everyone heals, some slower, some in different ways," contended Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado in the face of angry complaints from some of the victims' families that the reopening, with prayers, a "night of remembrance" and a screening of "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," was insensitive and crass.
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His point about the certainty of healing, while undoubtedly heartfelt, is too often and too easily offered by political leaders when, in fact, Aurora, like Newtown, Conn., and countless other places savaged by multiple shootings across decades, must struggle for years with the legacy and its wounds, largely alone as the spotlight fades. The trials of gun-damaged victims who survive mass assaults is one of the intangibles that must not be overlooked if the nation, and the political system, is to have any hope in the renewed fight for stronger gun controls.
For all the talk at the movie house of healing, one surviving victim, 23-year-old Caleb Medley, remained in grievous suffering on his back with severe brain and motor damage and the loss of an eye. His family exulted when he was briefly helped to his feet last month, and hoped that he might be able to leave rehabilitation soon for an extended care facility, however limited his horizons. Seven family members of another victim, Ashley Moser, take turns making sure the 25-year-old woman, a paraplegic after a neck wound, is rotated twice a night in her bed. Her aunt, Annie Dalton, reports Ashley remains deeply depressed with little motivation as she faces the fact that her 6-year-old daughter, Veronica, was shot dead that night while the paralyzed mother lost a fetus soon after the gun spree.
"There is no closure here," Ms. Dalton, a retired public school principal, politely reported of Ashley's life. "It's a tough road," she said, citing all manner of bureaucratic tangles about health insurance, fading rehabilitation coverage, other financial demands beyond estimating, and endless tasks like the family's learning to move Ashley on a board to distant doctors' appointments.
There is familiar ritual in Aurora's aftermath that the rest of the nation needs to know. A charity fund that grew so quickly after the carnage — to about $5 million — is depleted. It was distributed by Ken Feinberg, the respected compensation guru from 9/11 and other tragedies, under a formula that devotes 70 percent to those who suffered brain damage or paralysis — something more than $200,000 each. "There's not enough money," Mr. Feinberg apologized to claimants with lower-rated trauma. "It's a horrible situation," he said of Aurora's needs.
In caring for her niece, Ms. Dalton can barely speak of the fresh massacre in Newtown or the "unreal" power of the National Rifle Association in dominating the conversation about a problem that in the last 40 years has taken one million lives and left countless others like Ashley and her family to manage unspeakably debilitated lives. "The next tragedy is on its way," Ms. Dalton said of the one certain lesson in Ashley's fate.
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