Private stories help public see how tragedy is overcome

We do not like to pry.

You may find that hard to believe. Many people think that the media get some sort of ghoulish pleasure out of nosing their way into trauma.

We don't. But we do appreciate the result of prying in the right way at the right time.

Hopefully, as you follow the stories in our three-day series on the NIU shootings that began Wednesday, you do, too.

To be more precise, we tried very hard not to pry into the lives of the students, families, faculty and administrators affected by the Feb. 14 campus shootings.

But when assistant managing editor Diane Dungey and her team of reporters and photographers began mapping out this project last spring, they began with a clear hope that through compassionate, yet incisive reporting and interviewing, they could not just tell compelling stories about what happened in Cole Hall that day and since, but also and more important describe actions and behaviors that could help us all better understand the process of healing after an unimaginable tragedy.

Who knew that along the way, they would also produce a reaffirmation of the strength of human spirit?

That's a lofty description, I realize. But how else do you describe the bond that helps brothers Kevin and Paul Sundstrom overcome the horror they shared that afternoon? The resilience of Samantha Dehner, the shooting victim who returned to campus this fall after overcoming predictions she would never again use her right arm? The parental tug that brings Gary Parmenter on repeated visits back to his late son's fraternity to carry the rejuvenating, if painful, message that "grieving is a price we pay for love?" The remarkable recovery of Maria Ruiz Santana who, hospitalized and unable to speak from a wound to the throat, could only write "I WANT TO GO BACK" on a pad of paper when told the spring semester could be lost?

The overwhelming community outpouring that led Santana's family to realize that "we have family here?"

The examples go on and on. Dungey's team recounts many of them in the three days of our series "Return, Remember, Recover."

To find them required scores of uneasy contacts, difficult interviews and the generosity of the students, faculty and family who were willing to revisit their wounds publicly and let others see both their private horrors and their private victories.

Each story is unique. Some victims find comfort in talking about what happened; some avoid it. Some have found it relatively easy to get back to normal life; some still have great difficulty. But all have something to say to anyone who may experience tragedy.

To be sure, not many of us will experience the nightmare of a deranged gunman firing indiscriminately into our college classroom. But we all do deal with hardship in some fashion, and because they let reporters and photojournalists peer into the private corners of their lives, the individuals from the NIU community profiled in our stories help us see that it can be overcome.

Drama is inherent in all their stories, of course, and human drama makes for compelling reading. But the emphasis of our series is on the title's latter verb - recover.

Thanks to the recounting of their activities and strategies in the months since the shooting, the victims have helped us all see that hardship is not merely interesting to read about; it is meaningful to everyone and often even inspiring.

Jim Slusher, jslusher@dailyherald.com, is an assistant managing editor at the Daily Herald.