I learned to swim at the public pool at Treadwell Park in Newtown, Conn.
I learned to ride my bike on Head O'Meadow Road. I hit my first and only home run at Sandy Hook Little League Field. As a sophomore in college, I spent winter break as a counselor at a Biddy Basketball camp at Sandy Hook Elementary.
This week, Treadwell Park was overrun by media waiting for press briefings from state police and politicians. Sandy Hook Field was empty, as was the elementary school. On Friday, first responders hurried students and teachers past the field on the way to the firehouse, where frantic parents were already gathering, desperate for any information. Some would receive the worst news imaginable.
Twenty children and six adults were murdered in my hometown. These beautiful, innocent kids will never grow up in Newtown, never learn to swim, ride bikes or hit home runs. They will never raise families of their own. They have been robbed of their places in the world, and their parents, families and neighbors have been wounded in a way I can't imagine.
There are two Newtowns now - the one before Sandy Hook, and the one I returned to Friday after hearing about the shootings.
I learned of the tragedy via a Twitter update that didn't specify which school. My mother teaches kindergarten at one of the other two elementary schools in Newtown. Terrified, I called her. I can't describe my relief when she answered and I knew she was safe.
Her voice was soft, her sobbing uncontrollable. She told me what little she knew, and said "It's terrible," again and again.
She asked how teachers could return to their classrooms and focus on education. How could students be expected to concentrate? How could any of them ever feel safe at school again?
I had no answers. Still don't. But I couldn't just sit in my apartment in Scranton and watch my community suffer.
I needed to be home.
I drove down Main Street, toward the 100-foot flagpole at the intersection - its flag at half-staff. I passed the 307-year-old brick town hall building, known for its $2 movies and the place where my parents held my 10th birthday party. Next door is the general store my father and I visited every Saturday for the 99-cent bacon, egg and cheese sandwich special.
Everything was just the way I remembered, but something important was gone. It had not been lost, but taken. Hundreds gathered at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church seeking strength in numbers. It had been a long time since I had been inside a church, but I knew I would regret not going.
I couldn't get in.
Nearly 1,000 people had packed the church, forcing the hundreds of late arrivals to listen from outside, through the open windows. It was moving to be part of such an outpouring of support, but it wasn't enough.
The church was kept open overnight, and at about 3:30 a.m. Saturday, I went back.
Alone, I sat in the first pew, a few used tissues and opened prayer books resting on the lacquered wood. It was so quiet, you could hear the crackle of 27 white pillar candles that burned for the Sandy Hook victims. The last candle was for the mother of the shooter, who was murdered in her Newtown home, which is across the street from my best friend's house.
The silence of the church and the glow of the candles will stay with me for the rest of my life. Like my memories of Newtown before Sandy Hook, the experience is now a part of who I am.
Newtown will never be the same after Sandy Hook. Neither will I, but I will always call it home.