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Sons and guns
By BRENDA EHRKE
| Article published on Thursday, Feb. 8, 2007 |
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LARGO - Three years have passed since Jeanne and Sean Caroline’s lives were forever changed. The date was Sept. 5, 2003.
Knocking on their front door that morning was a uniformed police officer, a minister, and a victim advocate. The team assembled with horrific news. Twelve-year-old Seanne (pronounced Shawnie) Caroline was dead. They were there to inform his parents of the tragedy.
A friend had accidentally fatally injured Seanne with his father’s handgun which the boys found under a living room couch.
Jeanne Caroline remembers the morning and tries to ignore the tears as they trail down her cheeks. She gently swipes them aside casually, as if she’s brushing loose hairs back.
“I’m not for or against guns,” said Caroline. “I’m right down the middle. All I want to do is get the message out there for parents and kids to be aware of the dangers guns present; don’t ever assume other parents think of safety as much as you do.”
More than 13,000 children were injured by a firearm in the United States, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American College Of Emergency Physicians.
Caroline believes the numbers could be significantly lowered with proper education and gun safety awareness.
The main goal of the Seanne’s Wish Foundation, which his parents established, is to educate families about gun safety and prevent any more unnecessary deaths of children. She says that as much as parents teach kids to buckle up when getting into a car, and remembering to look both ways before crossing a street, gun safety should also be in the forefront of every parent’s mind. Sadly, she feels it is a subject not talked about enough with kids.
Karen Coultas is a friend of the Caroline family and mother of a girl whom Seanne Caroline was close with prior to his death. Coultas and her husband, Tim, were asked by Jeanne Caroline to portray the Carolines in a video the foundation has made about Seanne’s death. Caroline says she could not have done it.
Coultas said she and her husband felt honored to be asked to help make the video and help kids become more aware of gun safety.
Coultas says on the day of filming she felt sick to her stomach. “I wanted to do justice to the situation but wasn’t sure if I could play all the emotions since I am not an actress.”
Coultas said to help her prepare for her role, she went into her daughter Amanda’s bedroom. She located a photograph of Seanne, a teddy bear, and a necklace Seanne had given her daughter, Amanda, on Valentine’s Day.
She says she picked up a journal that Amanda kept during the difficult days following his death. She read some of the things her daughter had poured out onto the pages. That was enough to start the process of remembering the day she and so many others had desperately tried for the previous three years to erase.
Coultas remembers, “The tears are real in the DVD. I just kept thinking what if it was my child that they were telling me about.”
Caroline emphasizes the main point of the video.
“There’s a real need to educate children and families about gun safety. I want them to think and hear about it all the time.”
“No parent ever wants to get the knock on their door.” Tears return to her soft eyes. “I never ever want to erase Seanne’s memory.” She nudges them away, yet again.
“We have to talk to kids, and we have to be able to look into the eyes of other parents and ask straight up, ‘Do you have guns in your house? Are they locked up?’”
Caroline remains hopeful that the foundation will make a difference. “If I can save a kid from an unnecessary death by a handgun, then we will have succeeded.”
In the meantime, there is much work to do at Seanne’s Wish. The foundation has hosted several golf tournaments, and received approval for distribution into Citrus County school of a video titled “One Reckless Moment, a Lifetime of Emptiness.” The goal is for all schools in the state to have a copy.
A local foundation, Seanne’s Wish, was formed by Largo residents Jeanne and Sean Caroline in remembrance of their son.
Seanne’s Wish does not currently own the copyright for the video. It costs the foundation roughly $10 per copy. She says it is money gladly spent to keep sending the message out.
“When we need money, we’ll just keep having events to raise the money,” Caroline said.
Visit www.seanneswish.com.
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Article published on Thursday, Feb. 8, 2007
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