Vigil marks 2 weeks since Newtown massacre

NEWTOWN, Conn. (WTNH) -- Two weeks after 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, clergy from across Newtown came together for an interfaith vigil.

On a bitterly cold morning, footprints in the snow led to a community coming together once again.

"I tell people in my church, already, that our lives will never be the same," said Rev. Matthew Crebbin, Newtown Congregational Church. "That can be received as bad news, and we can cycle in despair, or we can say our lives will never be the same and how will we move forward in the midst of this."

It's been two weeks since hell shattered Newtown. Two weeks of shock, grief and confusion as to how unspeakable tragedy could happen here.  Yet through it all, Newtown has shown the strength of solidarity, showing it once again at the Fairfield Hills Hospital campus for an interfaith service.

"Today we are a smaller crowd but it's always important," Rabbi Schaul Praver from Temple Adath said. "Important for the community, also important for the clergy to pray and be together and keep ourselves strong."

As people in Newtown and Connecticut continue down this long road to recovery, there are two choices here: to be consumed by love or to be consumed by fear. And clearly, if fear is the choice, a community can never really heal.

There will come a time -- a time many believe will be soon -- where attention here will fade.  Memorials will disappear, visitors resume normal lives and the press moves on to something else.  What will not change, however, are the footprints; never alone, but always pairs, walking together, working together, to somehow, some way, find a way to move on.

"We're not going to be all in the same timeframe," Rev. Crebbin said. "We're not going to arrive at certain destinations of the healing process at the same time."