'Always smiling': Portraits of massacre victims

(AP) Most died at the very start of their young lives, tiny victims taken in a way not fit no matter one’s age. Others found their life’s work in sheltering these little ones, teaching them, caring for them, treating them as their own. After the gunfire ended Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the trail of loss was more than many could bear: 20 children and six adults at the school, the gunman’s mother at home, and the gunman himself.

A glimpse of some of those who died: