Ten years after Sandy Hook, a mother's grief and healing

NEWTOWN, United States - Jenny Hubbard struggles to believe that 10 years have passed since her six-year-old daughter's murder at Sandy Hook Elementary during the deadliest mass shooting against schoolchildren in US history.

Catherine Violet Hubbard was among 20 children and six adults gunned down by Adam Lanza in the five-minute killing spree in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012.

The massacre shocked America and the world, sparked heightened security measures at schools, and renewed a contentious fight for gun control laws that continues a decade later.

"It's a reminder that time is so fleeting," Hubbard, 50, says of Wednesday's anniversary, which, like every year, will be marked with quiet reflection in the town of just 27,000 people.

"It's been a lifetime because from that day to now, my life is totally different, and yet at the same time it was like it was yesterday," she said.

Hubbard remembers Catherine and her eight-year-old son's excitement as she put them on the school bus that morning, with Christmas just around the corner.

"They were over the moon for the holidays. It was one of those mornings where I look back on, and I think it was rushed and chaotic, but it was also one of the best mornings that we had," she recalls.

At 9:30 am, 20-year-old Lanza entered the school armed with a Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle and two pistols after shooting dead his mother at home.

"The phone call came in that something had happened, and the rest of the day was just a long fog of knowing that something terrible had happened but not understanding the magnitude of what that was," says Hubbard.