Some things are worse even than death.
Living.
Surviving when so many others had to die.
An avalanche of soul-crushing guilt has seized those who were inside Sandy Hook Elementary School during Friday’s massacre. The ones who did not die.
They’re suffering unimaginable pain.
Little kids too young to truly understand the meaning of death, and their families, are learning about a dreadful scourge even grown-ups should never know.
Survivors’ guilt.
Teacher Victoria Soto heroically gave her life while shielding first-graders with her own body from the bullets fired by depraved assassin Adam Lanza.
Those lucky enough to escape don’t feel very lucky.
One is a child of 7 who was spared, thanks to the brave and beautiful teacher who gave her life without hesitating.
“She took a bullet for the child,’’ said Pastor Jim Solomon of New Hope Community Church in Newtown.
Soto’s great feat of love saved the child. It did not save the youngster, barely out of babyhood, from the crushing sorrow that followed.
“This 7-year-old is so traumatized,’’ the child can barely speak, said Solomon.
“She is dead,’’ he said simply. “The child is alive.’’
In two harrowing days, Solomon, a wise and cheerful preacher, had his counsel sought by a great number of guilt-ridden families.
“In just this weekend, a dozen of them’’ have come to see him.
“They keep asking, ‘Why were these children spared while so many others died?’ ” Solomon told me.
There is no real answer.
“This world wasn’t good enough for them,’’ he said. “So God took them home.’’
Yesterday, evil made a return trip to this grief-wracked town, site of the mass murder of 20 innocent children, just 6 and 7, and six adults.
At about 12:30 p.m., St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church was packed with worshippers.
The church’s school was holding a rehearsal for a Christmas pageant in which a 6-year-old girl who was shot to death Friday was to appear as an angel. The pageant is going on in the child’s honor and memory.
Then the office phone rang.
It was a depraved sicko with mayhem on his mind.
“Someone called and threatened the church,” Monsignor Robert Weiss told The Post.
The scene was pandemonium as word spread from pew to pew that the church, just like the school days earlier, was under attack. The church and its school were evacuated.
A woman fainted.
Nancy Elis, 66, saw a SWAT team storming the church.
“This is a house of God where people come to be comforted,’’ Elis said through tears.
She thought of the little kids. The dead. And the guilt-ridden survivors who made it out alive.
There is no way to understand why some lived and others died.
And now, the people of Newtown are being denied even the comfort of their church.
It is beyond awful.