He and the school bus driver tried to call the children's parents, but they got answering machines. They notified the driver's supervisor who relayed the information to authorities. Some of the parents soon arrived. The parents, Rosen and the six kids walked to the neighboring firehouse.

The children and their teachers huddled in bay areas where firetrucks are typically kept so they could be counted.

Two hours later, after Rosen had returned home, a woman knocked on his door. She said she was the mother of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis.

"Her face looked frozen in fear. She said to me, 'I heard there were six kids here. Is he here?'"

Rosen knew the names of the six children who he helped. His heart sank. "No, he's not here," Rosen told her.

As he recalled that encounter, Rosen wept. "She was just looking for a miracle, and I wanted to deliver her son to her -- and I couldn't."

Initial reports had indicated two adults were dead, but by late Friday afternoon parents of the slain children were told of their loss at a private room in the firehouse.

Back at the firehouse, Rosen looked at a list posted later and wept again when he saw two of the names: Victoria Soto and Jesse Lewis.

Before the tragedy, Rosen often read children's books to an elementary school in a neighboring town.

He'd recently come across a kid's book about a girl whose dog died in a fire. For weeks afterward, the girl smelled soot in her dreams and couldn't sleep. Then, one night a one-eyed cat jumped into her bed, cuddled with her and purred. The cat's soothing purr helped her sleep for the first time.

"The book doesn't end with a rainbow," he said. "It ends with hope in the sense of the continuity of her healing."

He couldn't help but wonder: What will be Newtown's one-eyed cat?

"The one-eyed cat is here," he said. "I don't know what it is yet."

The son of Orthodox Jews from Ukraine, Rosen hasn't been to synagogue in more than 40 years. But he said God delivered six angels to him that day. "This experience has made me spiritual," he said. "I want to show those children that there is light.

"Let the goodness of the children, their essential innocence and goodness and energy -- let them provide us with a pathway," he said. "That's what I want the gift of these children to be."

'So many angels'

The McDonnells were overcome when they first saw Grace's white casket at the funeral home. "You felt like the floor was falling out beneath you and your breath was taken away," her mother said.

But then, they pulled out Sharpies of all colors and began drawing: peace signs, ice cream cones, lighthouses, sea gulls. The family said it looked like it was covered in graffiti by the time they were done.

"We had to take great joy in knowing that when we walked in there it was so white, and our breath was taken away," Lynn McDonnell said. "But when we walked out of there, it was like we had joy again. It had so much color."

The family also brought Grace's favorite pocketbook, seashells, hair bows and flip-flops, as well as her sunglasses and a frying pan. Her father placed his New York Yankees cap with her. Grace loved Taylor Swift and Kenny Chesney -- the family gave her music from both.

"When we left, we were like: She's fully stocked," her mom recalled.

Her father said that "thinking of her smile, her spark, her brightness" helped guide the family through this most difficult time. Telling Grace's 12-year-old brother Jack what had happened, he said, was the "toughest thing to do."

The McDonnells, like the other grieving families, met privately with President Obama when he visited Newtown last Sunday. Lynn McDonnell said his visit brought reassurance. "He's just a dad coming in to meet a dad and a mom and a son -- and we really felt that."

Grace was a budding artist. The family gave the president a painting of an owl she had drawn. He told the family he would treasure it.

The parents say they're comforted by the fact Grace died with her friends. "She was at a place that she loved," her mother said.

"We have so many angels and so many bright stars shining over all of us in this town right now," the father said. "They will teach us how to go on and how to live through them."

They have no hatred toward the shooter, a point they've emphasized to their surviving son.

"The thing that Grace taught us is that you've got to live for the future," her father said. "You've got to live for happiness, peace, and to not divert your energies to hate, anger. That wasn't her. It's not us."

That, they say, is their daughter's lasting legacy.