One Mother’s Christmas Wish

Liza Long, the wonderfully empathetic and courageous woman who two years ago wrote “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother,” has written a kind of Christmas letter on her blog that I found quite moving. The good news is that her family, shattered by her son’s emotional problems, is now back together, after treatment that has ended his violent outbursts. Last weekend she took her daughter to see her first Nutcracker—a favorite holiday treat for so many mothers and daughters.

At the same time, Long notes that the effective help her family got and the hope with which they approach the future are things so many other families lack. And she cites at least 15 men and women with documented mental illness who were killed by on-duty police officers in 2014. Long sees being open about the “often overwhelming challenges of mental illness” as a critical first step in getting more families access to care. “Without treatment,” she writes, “two years after Newtown, for too many families, Christmas is a time of sorrow and loss and grief.”