Columbine Aftermath: Would You Forgive the Shooters?

Columbine Memorial
Clement Park, Littleton, CO
Image From Wikimedia Commons

Awhile back, a high school student from Medellin, Columbia asked me a series of questions about 'Columbine' as part of a project she was doing in her English class.

What follows is my answer to Question #4 in the Series:

Would You Forgive the Shooters?

Oh, I don't know....

What time of day is it?

What day of the week is it?

What month of the year is it?

Who am I with, and what are we discussing?

Am I 'required' to forgive the shooters?

Will forgiving the shooters make me a happy person?

Will my forgiving the shooters make a difference in anyone's life, much less my own? I mean, they're dead, right?

Seems like the more I tried to come up with an answer to the original question, the more confused, frustrated, and emotional I became. Truth is, English is a very strange language....very strange, indeed.

In its proper context, the original question sounds as if this student was asking me to forgive the shooters.

Not "could".

Not "should".

Not "can".

Not "may" (wait...that's not proper English, is it?).

No. The question asks "would" I forgive the shooters.

Now, given that the question is being asked by someone whose English is a second language, I can certainly understand how the would could (see what I did there) be seen as asking me to do something especially by those whose primary language is English...in this case to forgive the shooters of Columbine. 

I'm not so sure that's what was being asked of me, though. In fact, I'm pretty sure that is not what was being asked of me.

The question did, however, prompt me to analyze what was being asked almost to death before coming up with anything at all that might even remotely answer it.

When I gave it some of that good old fashioned analytical thought, the list of questions above kept popping into my head and kind of prevented me from making any kind of progress whatsoever. After all, those questions weren't the ones being asked. The question was/is: "Would you forgive the shooters?"

So many things came to mind, and still do.

None of those things, however, not one single one of them, directly answer that simple, straightforward, brutally honest question seeking an equally simple, straightforward, brutally honest answer.

The thoughts were there, but the words never seemed to come out quite the way I wanted them to in order to convey to the reader the enormity of what's being asked here. I'm still not sure what I'm writing now even conveys the thoughts I want to convey.

But, at some point I came to the realization and acceptance if I didn't put something down in writing now, then it wasn't going to happen at all.

I also realize and accept the tenor of the question, itself, is directed at me and not at anyone else.

I think that's the hardest part in all of this....being asked to share feelings I'm not really actually ready to share even after all these years since April 20, 1999. 

So, I won't....share those feelings I'm still uncomfortable with, that is. 

Sorry, just can't do it, and the questions listed above will remain unanswered....at least in this blog post.

I do, however, have a bottom line in all of this, and that's that I'd really rather completely forget about the shooters, but can't by virtue of the fact this event keeps rearing its ugly head even after all these years.

That ugly head evinces emotions and mood swings in me still; some more positive than others, some more negative than others. 

So, it kind of depends on what kind of mood I happen to be in at any given time whether the shooters will be forgiven at that particular moment in time, and whether at that particular moment in time I happen to actually be giving one, or both, of them even an iota of thought.

To me, forgiveness, or the absence of resentment, isn't a one time thing. 

No sirree....not at all....especially when it comes to the two shooters of Columbine --- and especially when the actual shooting, in and of itself, isn't the only thing that arguably needs to be forgiven!

How can it be when something like the root cause(s) of Columbine are the subject of the conversation? Those root causes continue to be points of ongoing discussion and points of ongoing contention. 

Therefore, the two shooters of Columbine are....not were....are, at the very core of the root causes for this massacre by virtue of the mental illness involved, easy access to both 'legal' and 'illegal' weaponry, and their desire to be 'infamous' to name a few.

Today.

Still.

Ongoing.

Personally, root causes are the kinds of things that come to my mind almost immediately when asked any question(s) about Columbine.

Not the two shooters.

Not even what they did.

Rather:

Why they did it.

How they did it.

And, finally, what can be done in the future to help prevent something like this from ever happening again! 

Those are the things I think about....and, that right there is my 'forgiveness', if one wants to call it that and if you can catch my drift for the shooters of Columbine.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

It ain't easy. It's ongoing. It's a life's journey.

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Columbine Aftermath: How're You Doing?

Columbine Impromptu Memorial
Clement Park
PennLive.com Screen Capture
YouTube Video
The Columbine High School shooting, April 20, 1999

A few years ago I participated in a four part interview for a website titled It Can Happen Here (ICHH).

ICHH formed not too long after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. Its primary focus was on promoting school safety.

Unfortunately the site is no longer active.

Because it is no longer active, I thought it might be ok to amend, update, and reboot a newer version of my interviews in that series. This post is the first. The other three interviews will follow at later dates.

==================================================================

ICHH: Your daughter, Anne Marie, was shot and severely injured at Columbine April 20, 1999 and your son, Nathan, was in a science room for four hours that day but was physically unharmed. How are you and your family doing these many years later?

Ted Zocco-Hochhalter: Actually, there are more members of my family than Anne Marie, Nathan, and me. There's Katherine, Shawn, Jessi, and Bobby, as well. I'll be talking about each of them later in this blog post.

To be brutally honest, I really don't know how Anne Marie is doing today.

Tragedies tend to either bind families together or they break families apart.

Anne Marie's relationship with me and mine with her had been strained for quite some time. It came to a head in December 2009 at which time she chose to part ways with my side of her family. I won't go into the causative details here simply because it would serve no constructive or positive purpose.

As far as how I'm doing now is concerned, I'd have to say I'm still healing as we all are. The scars from Columbine and its aftermath are still there, and they always will be. For what I consider to be obvious reasons the scars from the failed father/daughter relationship between Anne Marie and me are more difficult to bear in some ways than the ones from Columbine.

The people closest to me help me stay grounded. Their efforts to do so during the episode with Anne Marie were sorely tested, though.

The conflict with Anne Marie drove me into a depression so deep that for awhile I contemplated ending my own life. I'm especially grateful to Katherine for pulling me out of my funk. There are others, as well, but Katherine, more than anyone else, helped save me from myself. They all deserve better from me, and I intend to be better for them by never again putting them through what I did in this very turbulent time in our lives.

That being said, I've also come to accept that Anne Marie wants nothing to do with me or her immediate family. That required me to let go and move forward with my own life. It wasn't until I was able to accept that fact that I realized how much the rest of my family meant to me, and, thankfully, how much I meant to them. They all stood by me. They all supported me. They all urged me to move forward with my life. I finally heard them through my fog, and I'm forever grateful to all of them.

As has already been previously stated we are a Columbine family. That includes Katherine and her two children, Shawn and Jessi (my two step-children), and Bobby her (and now my) youngest.

Both Shawn and Jessi also attended Columbine for brief periods, Shawn prior to and Jessi following the tragedy there. Nathan was there April 20. Bobby was only three years old when Columbine happened.

We watched Nathan struggle following his experience with this tragedy.

He was offered therapy and refused it. His therapy was his friends. They supported him, he relied on them as they did on him. 

He struggled with direction, and I was less than effective in giving it to him. My primary focus was on being a caregiver for Anne Marie right, wrong, or indifferent.

He struggled with school. He wound up having to do remedial course work during the summer in order to graduate with his classmates. 

He worked but went from part-time job to part-time job. 

He was rarely home. When he was home most of his time was spent in his room or with friends he invited to the house. There was little family interaction.

After graduating from high school (his class was the last class of those who were there on April 20), he had trouble deciding what he wanted to do. So Katherine and I gave him three choices:

He could seek full-time employment and live at home or move out. That meant he'd have to pay rent either to a landlord or to us.

He could enroll in college, and we would support him however we could.

He could enlist in the military.

Nathan chose to enlist in the U.S. Navy.

He might not be willing to admit it or to agree with me, but I believe that decision was the best one he could have possibly made. His service in the military did more to help him work through some of his issues than any of us could have.

He came into his own. He's come a long way, and we're very proud of him.

Shawn was a Freshman at Columbine in the school year 1998-99. 

In November, 1998, Katherine, for reasons even she can't fully explain, felt compelled to move her family (she was a single Mom of three at that time) to Bailey, CO, a small rural very close-knit community southwest of the metro Denver area. 

If she hadn't moved her family to Bailey, Shawn would also have been at Columbine on April 20. He was close with some of the kids who were outside the school that day and who came under fire. Chances are pretty good if they hadn't moved, Shawn would have been with those kids that day.

He doesn't talk much about it, but he's doing well, and we're very proud of him, too.

Jessi attended Columbine after the tragedy. 

She'd gone to live with her Father for awhile, and enrolled at Columbine for a short duration.

To hear her tell it, her experience was kind of a mixed bag. She knew some of the kids, but she talked about how the atmosphere hadn't really changed all that much as a result of the tragedy. 

Prior to Jessi's enrollment at Columbine, and only a couple of months after the massacre, there was a double homicide of two kids in a local Subway sandwich shop nearby Columbine High School that, to this day, remains unsolved.

This tragedy rocked the community of Littleton. Much of the progress, the healing that had taken place was sorely tested. 

I mention this because the young woman who was murdered in this tragedy was a neighbor and friend of Jessi's. Understandably, this tragedy had a lasting effect on Jessi...another example of a true 'ripple effect'.

She's had her ups and downs, but has landed with both feet firmly planted. Proud of her? Very much so.

And then there's Bobby, our youngest. Prior to Katherine and me getting married, I took Bobby to a McDonald's one day for a happy meal. Watching him at play in the playground I became very sad, very introspective. He was only 5 years old at the time.

As I watched him interact with the other children, I had feelings wash over me I hadn't felt in a very long time. Feelings of hope for his future, feelings of insecurity as to how the two of us would grow together as he matured into a young man.

I guess these feelings could be considered normal under most other circumstances. I'd had them with both Anne Marie and Nathan when they were his age, too. But because of what happened at Columbine, they were intensified.

My confidence in my own ability to do these things for Bobby had been shaken to the core.

Questions began to plague me:

Would it be fair to put him into a situation like this - a family with so many issues to work through, so many dysfunctions for him to be exposed to?

Would he forever be living under the shadow of Columbine simply by his association with me? That's not what I wanted for him, but it was a distinct possibility.

That's when I began to realize how much innocence had been lost as a direct result of the tragedy at Columbine, not only for Bobby, but for all those other young children he was playing with, too. Every one of those children had parents who were affected in some way by that tragedy. Would it change the way they raised their own kids?

I also knew, in my heart that this event, while tragic, was also helping me be more aware of how much harder I needed to work at building and nurturing relationships with those whom I loved. Even though innocence had been lost, I realized it didn't mean it was gone.

Over the years, I've watched Bobby grow into a young man...a young man I am very proud of. I know we've had our ups and downs, ins and outs, overs, unders, arounds, and throughs, but I'm so proud that he calls me `Dad', and I'm so proud to be able to call him `Son' because he did me the honor of allowing me to adopt him on Valentine's Day, 2005.

Bobby is now in the fourth year of a six year enlistment in the U.S. Air Force.

I know he's seen me at my worst, as have Nathan, Shawn, and Jessi. Hopefully they've also seen me at my best and will remember those times, too.

We are also a Platte Canyon family. 

For those who may not know, September 27, 2006 Emily Keyes was held hostage along with six other female students at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, CO. Emily was murdered by the hostage taker: Teenage hostage fatally shot after authorities stormed Platte Canyon High School.

Since that time, Emily's family became active in pushing for school safety by founding the I Love U Guys Foundation.

I bring this up because Shawn and Jessi both graduated from Platte Canyon High School prior to the tragedy there.

Bobby was home shooled from that point forward.

Why, you ask? Think about it.

What are the odds that 4 out of 5 of your children might be directly affected by not one, but two tragedies like this? That doesn't mean we hid Bobby from anything. On the contrary. Thank goodness for his older siblings, though, because they pretty much brought the hammer down whenever they felt he was going south on anything.

When we made the decision to pull him from the public elementary school he was attending at the time of the tragedy at Platte Canyon he was really upset with us. Over time we gave him the option of returning to public high school and he chose to stay home schooled instead.

And then there is Katherine.

Following the massacre, Katherine went into the Columbine community solo to try to help where she could and where she was invited. Her professional experience and expertise in neuromuscular re-education for spinal cord and brain injuries as well as trauma and emotional release work helped many in their healing process, both physically and emotionally.

It was through another Columbine family that Katherine came into our lives, and I'm so very grateful she did. Katherine gave more of herself to our family than anyone else and often times at the expense of her own time spent with her own children. So much of what she did went above and beyond anything anyone could have, or should have, expected. That she ultimately chose to love me and to marry me is something I treasure beyond words, and I always will.

It's taken me a very long time but I finally came to the realization that I also have something to offer in this life - my professional emergency management expertise, my life experiences, and my willingness albeit reluctant to come out of my own very dense fog to help advocate for safer schools.

I mentioned earlier that Nathan struggled following Columbine. All too often the siblings and extended family of mass shooting victims are overlooked, ignored, and kind of pushed into the background in tragedies like these. So are survivors who were there but not injured. So are their families. That, to me, is a tragedy in its own right. Their stories also need to be told.

We Are ALL Columbine!

Everyone is affected. That's one of the reasons why the slogan "We are all Columbine" came into widespread use following that tragedy. It is now up to all of us to recognize and accept that fact, and to do everything we possibly can to be careful not to exclude anyone from our conversations on these issues.

Right now I'm focused on trying to help others by sharing my story, my experiences, and my professional expertise in school safety however I can whether it's in my blog or in other social/public media. I also invite others to participate and to share their own stories of survival and healing as guest bloggers.

These are my ways of trying to give back. It's an ongoing process. It isn't always easy. But then, nothing in life ever is.

I believe people generally hold out hope for happy endings. Unfortunately with incidents like Columbine, happy endings aren't possible. Reality intercedes and struggles continue...emotional and sometimes physical struggles. That's simply a statement of fact.

I'm not saying things don't get better or that people can't be happy once again, but those emotional and physical struggles never go away or vanish whether people choose to acknowledge that fact or not. 

That is just a sad reality.

It's what we choose to do with those never ending struggles that ultimately define each and every one of us.

* Comments on this blog are moderated.

What If Students Became More Powerful Than The Politicians?

March For Our Lives
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

What if, indeed?

What if students did become more powerful than the politicians?

Back in 2015, I posted a comment in a local message board here in Colorado (School Safety: To Plan or Not to Plan) about a meeting I had with a group of Denver East High School students. The topic for discussion was 'campus carry'.

Here's the post:

Yesterday, March 25, 2015 I had the pleasure of meeting with a group of high school students from East High School in Denver, CO. This is an activist group that has a range of things on their agenda that they hope to address over time. The subject of this particular discussion was "gun violence". 

I must admit I was a little apprehensive going in as to what to expect. After all, it's been over 30 years since I last set foot in a classroom at that level and in a "teaching" capacity (although I wasn't there to teach, but, rather, to discuss with them), and I'm not so naive as to think things haven't changed over time. So, my anxiety levels were pretty high. They weren't warranted. 

There were around 20 kids present. With the exception of one young man, the rest were all young women. 

I started the session with a simple question: "How many of you support campus carry?" None of them raised their hand. The next question was: "How many of you oppose campus carry". Every single person present raised their hand including the two adults who kind of help "guide" this group. 

Bottom line? This group is seeking knowledge, and therein lies their power. If anything at all was accomplished during this session, my hope is that it rests in this fact, and that this group of young women and one young man 'get that'. I believe they do. 

We talked about emotion in the ongoing debate. We talked about their role, from both an individual and a group perspective, and how they've pretty much been excluded from participation by adults on every professional level even though age appropriate students are key stakeholders when it comes to school safety. 

Finally, I was struck by their level of maturity and their willingness to listen, engage in discussion, ask questions, and, ultimately, to learn in this very contentious brouhaha going on around the country. That's something I haven't really seen all that much of from "adults" engaged in it. 

This is a group that will ultimately be heard. I just hope the adults who hear them also heed what they have to say.

Pretty benign, right? At least I thought it was.

My thinking was along the lines of how age appropriate students need to be invited to the table when discussing their safety while at school. I also thought a simple 'good job on your advocacy' pat on the back for these Denver East High School students might be appropriate.

My opinion on this hasn't changed in the intervening years.

The first response out of the gate:

Unless you are aware of an exemption to state and federal law, the first requirement for concealed carry is be at least 21 years or older. Since this is a high school, most students are less than 19 years old. Whom exactly were they expecting to be carrying? School staff is prohibited from concealed carry under existing laws. 

I just returned from training at Front Sight and met a man that worked for 3M in Minnesota and over dinner the discussion turned to the apparent lack of concern for our children when at school by some school officials. Since heaven forbid, we can't trust trained and vetted adults to protect them, we want more useless and ineffective laws that will continue to pose no help for our children until law enforcement arrives. He told us about window protection that will protect from gunfire and impact attacks, door lock guards and other products.

This person's post was accompanied by a short video on window protection followed by several comments on gun rights, gun free zones, and other asundry pro-gun advocacy comments ad nauseum.

Because school hardening wasn't the topic for discussion, I refused to engage in discussing the 'hardware' part of school safety. I did, however, go on to spar back and forth a bit on the issue of campus carry because that was the topic for discussion in the meeting with the kids. I'll leave it to the reader's imagination what this person's position on campus carry was.

The bottom line, from my perspective, is pro-guns everywhere advocates are still basically saying that students don't know what they're talking about because...well, because they're still high school students...that they lack life experiences to be able to 'talk to the issues' knowledgeably, that they aren't mature enough, that they aren't old enough to have a voice in their own safety while in school.

MSD HS Students
at Gun Violence Legislation
Support Rally
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Enter David Hogg, Emma Gonzalez, and a whole slew of kids from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School now demanding a voice at the table.

Perhaps instead of saying 'this is a group that will ultimately be heard' in my message board post, I should have said 'this generation will ultimately be heard'.

To me, these kids show more maturity on the issues of gun violence prevention and school safety than do many of the so-called 'adults' taking part in the conversation.

Have 'adults' who advocate for campus carry considered the possibility that their advocacy to make students feel safer by allowing guns on campus might not automatically do so....that some students might feel less safe with guns on campus?

Sadly, there are legislators currently trying to force 'safety measures' that allow campus carry down the throats of students and schools.

That may make some 'adults' who advocate for campus carry feel good. It may also make them feel like they're doing something pro-active and positive 'for' students and faculty.

But is it not also possible that by forcing their concept of safe schools that include guns on campus onto others by codifying campus carry into law, it is being done TO those students and faculty, not FOR them?

Take Florida as one example: Florida campus carry makes a comeback as debate over guns simmers ahead of 2019 session:

The proposal has drawn opposition from parents, administrators and the unions that represent K-12 teachers and university faculty.

“We've fought this issue every session since at least 2014 and prepare for it every year,” said Marshall Ogletree of the United Faculty of Florida. “Anytime you let any weapon on a campus you are inviting trouble.”

So, as the sign at the beginning of this essay says:

What if the Students Became More Powerful Than the Politicians?

Think about that for a sec. What if, indeed....

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People Have Stories to Tell - Whitney (Palmer) Cornett

Whitney Cornett is my niece and the daughter of my youngest sister, Belva Palmer, who shared her memories of Columbine in a previous post. 

The following narrative recounts Whitney's memories of the Columbine massacre that took place when she was in fifth grade. When she was a junior at Columbine High School, she wrote the following essay as part of a journaling class she was in. 

She indicated to me this was spur of the moment, and the topic was of a memory of something that really affected her growing up. "Good, bad, ugly, fun. Whatever came to mind."

She chose her memories of Columbine as her topic. I'm glad she did. Some of the details she relates have changed since she wrote this, but her 'story' is the only thing that matters here, and her story is powerful.

Every time I read this I have to sit back, collect my emotions, and take a deep breath before going on because Whitney was only eleven years old when the shootings at Columbine High School took place.

Whitney Cornett

Whitney....in her own words:

It was morning and we were about to begin D.O.L., daily oral lesson, lessons I will never forget, tedious, boring, easy lessons. Mr. Christiansen tells us to get out our notebooks and the voice of our principal interrupts him over the intercom. The voice begins speaking the usual “Attention all students and faculty”, leading me to think it’s not important to listen so I turn my focus to my math homework, actually enjoying it. I then hear the words “There is a situation about two miles away, please lock all doors and stay inside your classrooms.” My first thought is that we didn’t have a drill today so it must be real, then my curiosity takes over and, because it is unusual, I want to know what it is. Soon after the first announcement, the principal’s voice comes over the speaker again and through easing and coaxing in his voice we find that “the situation” is a shooting at the high school nearby. I panic and start doing math in my head, trying to figure out the exact age, and therefore grade, of my cousins. They are there. Are they okay? Thoughts, questions, worries stream into my head. I look at my best friend and she sees my confusion, fright, and she asks me what’s wrong. So I tell her and I tell her that something just feels wrong. She tries to convince me that everything is all right, she’s sure they’re fine. I try to believe her but I can’t. I knew it sounded cliché, overused, corny……especially for a fifth grader, but still, I felt something in my gut, just like in the movies. I knew it, maybe because nothing like it had ever happened to me or any of my family, so maybe this was it, that event that changes everything. Our lives, our innocence to things like this. What kind of thoughts are these for an 11 year old? I try to change worlds of thought, back to the one of children, kids, distraction, happiness that we didn’t have to do schoolwork at the moment. I try but not soon enough before they tell us that our parents are being called to come and pick us up from school and that was the only way we could leave the building, as children holding our mother or father’s hand.

The next thing I know, kids are leaving one by one, fast. I sit there, alone, wondering where my parents are. They take the remainder of us into the gym, there is a small enough number of kids that we can now fit in the gym and wait for our parents there. I sit down and lean against one of the mats on the wall that we used for cushioning when we race to each end of the gym and stop ourselves with the wall, but only when the teacher wasn’t looking. I’m talking with my friends when my music teacher walks over to where we are sitting and tells me that there is a man, a man not my father I questioned, who is here to pick me up. I ask her if she knows who it is and she answers me no, but says that my brother said he knew who the man was. I follow her out of the gym tense and nervous until I see my brother walking towards me with my parent’s good friend Gary, who to me was like an uncle. I was relieved.

We follow him to his truck, silent and confused, and then I finally get the courage to ask him “Where are Mom and Dad?” He looks at me, pausing as to think how to tell an 11 year old what her parents are actually doing. “They’re just helping your aunt and uncle, but they’ll come and get you when they’re done. For now you get to come to my house and hang out, ok?” I act satisfied with the answer and go back to being the little girl that he loves to spoil, seeing that he has three boys all older than me, I already understand that I am the little girl he gets to take care of, hypothetically, when he has any chance. I can see that he misses little kids like me and my brother, so right as we arrive to his mansion of a house, as I used to see it, he treats us with snacks and lets us sit in front of the big screen to watch cartoons. I’m a little past that, but my brother isn’t so I go and play darts, letting him watch his cartoons. He doesn’t seem phased at all by what’s going on and I don’t want to change that. He annoys me to no end, but I still want to take care of him before he grows bigger than me and can “beat me up” as they say. Gary keeps us occupied with all the cool stuff he has at his house that we don’t have at ours until dinner rolls around. He makes us mac n’ cheese. Michelle, his wife and my favorite “aunt”, isn’t home yet, so mac n’ cheese is the extent of his cooking. We’re still kids; we’re happy to have that. 8 o’clock rolls around and I hear the door bell ring while I’m standing by their enormous fish tank watching the crazy eyed fish and the cute little fish. I run to the door and there my Dad is. My brother and I jump on him, as tradition. He stands and talks to Gary for awhile, quiet enough that we can’t hear the “adult talk”, and we go into the kitchen to talk to Michelle, who came home an hour earlier. Soon my Dad calls our names and we say goodbye to Michelle and Gary, giving them hugs before we leave with Dad.

It’s dark outside. Dad starts talking in a calm voice, explaining why Uncle Gary had to come get us from school. I can tell that he has to keep some details away, because Brendon is only 8 years old. He tells us that the shooting was at Anne Marie and Nathan’s school. He had to go to try and find Nathan and Mom went to stay with Aunty Carla. It took so long for him to come get us because Nathan was one of the last kids on the busses to the parents, and then I immediately asked “Well what about Mom, where is she?” His answer shocks me. “Because she had to go to the hospital with Aunty Carla.” I get that look of a scared child, and go the part of asking why and what happened over and over, lost. I put the pieces together. He didn’t say anything about Anne Marie, my cousin, I always wanted to be just like her. I follow her and try to act as she does. I thought she was so cool and pretty and I admired her so much. Back to the moment…… “Why Dad, what happened, is Anne Marie ok?” I stare at him, waiting. “Well Hun, she’s hurt right now and she had to go to the hospital.” “Ok, is it bad, do you know?” And his answer is somewhat comforting considering all the ideas I had in my head as to what could have happened. “We think she has been shot in the ankle, but we don’t know much right now.” I think to myself this isn’t the worst it could be, everything will be ok, and I’ll see her soon. We pull into the driveway and I see Mom’s car sitting in the garage. I run inside and she is hectic, rushing around, grabbing things and packing. I ask her why she is acting so crazy. She just looks at me and I can see in her eyes that she is scared. I have never seen her that way except when she found out her brother was dying. I become scared, yet again, and ask that she please tell me what’s happening even though they think I may be too young to hear it. “Sweetie, Anne Marie is badly hurt, I have to rush to the hospital right now.” “But wait, Dad said it was just her ankle.” “I’m afraid it’s more than that” she tells me, “she got shot in her chest Honey, she needs a lot of help right now.” I start crying, I can’t stop, and my Mom just hugs me. There, in my room, crying, Mom holding me. I think of one thing, I walk to my bed and grab Snow, my shabby, tired looking polar bear of a stuffed animal, my favorite and I can’t ever be without her for a night. I then walk over to my collection of beanie babies and grab the white bear with angel wings and give it to my Mom. “Do you think this will help her, I want to give this to Anne Marie.” She hugs me again, “Oh Honey she’ll love it, I’ll give it to her don’t worry.” Still crying, I watch out the window as my Mom’s car drives away.

The next morning I wake up and realize that nobody woke me up for school and that it’s still dark outside. I lie up and look at the clock, it is way too early for me to wake up on my own, that’s a change. I hear the TV in the next room, the news, Dad always listens to the news and I became accustomed to watching the weather before I got ready for school. But today the news wasn’t the same. The first thing I hear is “……in most critical condition is Anne Marie Hochhalter……” and that itself causes me to jump out of bed, with Snow in my hands, and walk into the next room. I slowly sit in the chair without concentrating on anything except the TV. The newswoman continues explaining my cousin’s condition, and it’s the first time I’ve heard any of it. My Dad walks in realizing I’m awake but doesn’t stop me from listening about the state that Anne Marie is in, fully knowing that things will change when I know what’s happening. I listen to the woman explaining that Anne Marie was shot three times in the chest but that they don’t know exact details as to what was damaged and to what measure. I learn from my Dad that the bullets punctured her aorta, the major valve of the heart he called it, and that they went through her spine. I had no idea what any of that meant. He told me “Well right now she can’t breathe on her own and she’s very hurt.” So then I asked “What’s going to happen, she’s gonna get better and be ok, right?” He just looks at me. “No, she isn't is she.” Again, tears start to form in my eyes. “Whitney she might not be able to walk again.” I didn’t know any of it was really that bad. But I did know what being paralyzed was.

There were no words to explain how I started to think and how I was feeling. Anne Marie was paralyzed. It took awhile for me to get it through my head what really had happened in the last 24 hours. Yesterday I woke up and went to school, today there is no school and my cousin, my icon, might not be able to walk ever again. Everything kind of just became a blur after that. The days at my house became hectic, usually only one of my parents was home at a time and they were always busy. Each night they would trade off staying home and going to the hospital. They tried their best to explain why everything was going the way it was, my aunt and uncle needed their help, Nathan needs their help, you’ll see her soon.

It was about two weeks after the shootings, and we were driving on the highway, on our way to visit Anne Marie. It would be the first time I’ve seen her since it all happened. My Mom told us that she had a bunch of tubes attached to her and machines all around her, and that there would be one tube down her throat, helping her to breathe. She couldn’t talk, but she writes on a pad of paper so we can still talk to her and we should. She also told us not to be afraid of what we were going to see, that Anne Marie might not look the same but she’s still the same old cousin. The one who babysat us, watched movies with us, played games with us, treated us like her friends. I took my first step into her room and I see her look at me and smile. In her hands she was holding that white bear I told my Mom to give to her, and I smile right back at her. I walk over next to her bed and start talking. It was slow and awkward at first, but soon that all went away.

I remember the first time walking down those white halls to her room, with tile everywhere it seemed like, cold but yet the most inviting it could be under the circumstances. In the beginning those halls were a maze, but after months of walking through them, they became one of my most familiar environments. I started to go there often, it was summer and I had nowhere else to be, I had nowhere else I wanted to be, so when my parents went, I went with. I met hundreds of people during that summer, and ate millions of meals made by many different people who were just trying to help in any way possible. My family flew in to see Anne Marie and we spent our time together, in the waiting room, in our private room where we could be when we weren’t with Anne Marie, or in the halls, keeping occupied while my uncle and aunt talked to doctors, volunteers, and visitors when we weren’t with them doing the same. My summer existed in that hospital for a month, and then at the recovery hospital next door, Craig Hospital for the rest of the summer. There, Anne Marie got her own private room, with a bed, a little eating area, a TV, and her own bathroom. At Craig she had all her physical therapy to recover from the shooting, and there she endured much pain, trying to learn how to start her life over. Some nights we would come for dinner but couldn’t stay long because she got tired very easily. It was hard to see her in her different life, how she had to slide onto her bed so slowly because it was so hard and so painful. How she had to take countless pills. It was hard to get used to, but I knew that she herself was trying to get through it, and it was so much harder for her. She stayed strong, never letting me see signs of weakness, but every once in awhile I could see her hurting. But it never stopped her from continuing on, moving away from what has changed and moving on to what is. She kept smiling when she met people, she kept smiling when she saw us and hugging us when we had to leave, and she was always strong. I admire her more than anyone for that. I never once saw her break down.

I began school after she moved into Craig and out of the ICU so I didn’t get to visit her as much, but my parents tried to take us there a couple times a week. In the beginning of October, my brother and I were walking home from school with our friends when my Dad’s truck pulled up beside us and told us he had to talk to us at home. Oh no, what now? We walk inside, and he tells us to sit down on the couch. “Your aunt Carla was very sick and she died today.” She had committed suicide by using a gun to her head. Now my cousin’s family had to endure that pain; Again there was heartache, change, and chaos in my family’s lives. My parents, my brother and I tried to be as supportive as we could.

They’ve gone through so much and have overcome all, literally all, of the obstacles that have been presented to them. They are the strongest people I’ve met to this day. My uncle has remarried a wonderful woman, Nathan is in the Navy, and Anne Marie has been going to college, has an apartment with her roommate, and has a job.She has become an amazing, powerful woman and I still, and always, will look up to her. Through the tragedy of the shootings at Columbine High School, my life was reshaped because of what she and her family had to go through. I can never compare to her, but she has taught me so much and she has given me someone to look up to. She moved on from the shootings and today, you would never guess or realizes that she has to look up a little when talking to you or that her form of walking is rolling. She never lets it get to her, and her strength, both physical and emotional, is incredible.

I'll end this post with a heartfelt special thank you to Whitney Cornett. Whitney's love and support and her family's love and support throughout our healing journey following the Columbine massacre will never be forgotten.

Whitney, hopefully you'll consider contributing more essays and insights in the future.

Love you and yours more than you'll ever know.

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People Have Stories to Tell - Brent Rockswold

Brent Rockswold is my nephew and the son of my younger sister, Faye Rockswold who shared her memories of Columbine in a previous post. He's also the same age as my son Nathan who was hunkered down with his classmates in the science wing at Columbine High School during the massacre.

These are some of his memories as a 14 year old when that massacre took place. 

Brent Rockswold

Brent....in his own words:

In April of 1999 I was a pretty regular fifteen-year-old boy. Having grown up in a small town I had always been pretty sheltered and as a result I was mostly concerned with things that affected me directly.

On April 20th I walked into homeroom and a friend asked if I had heard about a shooting that had happened at Columbine High School.

My first thought: "I don't know where that is. It's probably in New York or LA, things like this happen there all the time."

The rest of class went on normally. As I was walking out my frantic sister, Jill stopped me.

Jill: "Did you hear about Columbine?"

Brent: "Yeah?

She looked a little confused by my passive response.

Jill: "Brent, Anne Marie and Nathan go to Columbine!"

Anne Marie and Nathan are Jill and my first cousins, but what makes them different from the rest of our family is their age. Anne Marie is a few months older than Jill, and I am a few months older than Nathan. This had always kept us close because if we were experiencing something in life, odds were they were too. We have baby pictures together, we have pictures of Halloweens together (with Nathan and I embarrassingly dressed as Care bears, thanks mom), and we arrived at those awkward teenage years together. And while I had plenty of friends who were my age it was different to have someone who was a relative and a friend. It made it special. And it was very important to me to have this person who I could always relate to.

After hearing the news my cousins were possibly involved, I told myself: "I'm sure it's not as bad as its being made out to be on TV. I doubt anyone got hurt." We arrived home and the first thing mom said to us was, "Anne Marie has been shot"

I really didn't know how to react to the news. I think in that moment I couldn't comprehend exactly what that meant. My mom followed with "They think she was shot in the ankle, that's all we know right now."

First thought: `Oh she was just shot in the ankle, that's not too bad."

I suppose after hearing she had been shot, the news that it could be an ankle wound and not more severe was a relief, but I still find my initial response very odd.

Shortly after we got the call about the full extent of her injuries, she had been shot in the chest.

At school the next day one of my teachers announced in class that my cousin had been shot at Columbine. I don't think I've ever been more uncomfortable in my own skin than I was then. I thought everyone was watching me and I didn't know how to act, should I look upset, worried, confident, should I cry? Nothing like this had ever happened to me before and I found myself only feeling numb, because I kept telling myself, "This isn't real."

The next day we arrived in Denver and my aunt drove us to the hospital. The rest of the family was already there and immediately I felt that slight air of awkwardness that happens when tragedy rather than joy is the reason for a family being together. We were told Nathan was out running an errand but would be back soon, then we were brought in to see Anne Marie. I think when you're in denial about something and then you are brought face to face with the reality of the situation it can scramble your world for a minute. That's what it was like when I first set foot in that room.

First thought: "After what they've been through, will Jill and I ever be able to fully relate to Anne Marie or Nathan again?"

I tried to keep to the back corner of the room, almost hiding. I had no idea what to say and didn't want to blurt something out which I tend to do sometimes when I'm uncomfortable. Anne Marie woke up and managed a smile when she saw everyone in the room. Then she looked like she was trying to ask for something, but because of the tubes in her mouth she couldn't talk. Instead she had to mouth the words while making charade like gestures weakly. I was the first to decipher that what she wanted was a swab to wet her mouth. She looked over, smiled at me and mouthed "good." Her patience amazed me. Eight people couldn't understand when she was making a simple request; I can't imagine how frustrating that must have been.

Shortly after we were kicked out of the room because the nurse wanted Anne Marie to sleep. As we were leaving we finally ran into Nathan who was just coming back. I wasn't going to let anything change, and greeted him as I always had.

We met some of Nathan and Anne Marie's friends who were also at Columbine including Jayson, Nathan's friend who pulled Anne Marie to safety at the risk of his own life. When I shook his hand I thought about how he was just a normal guy my age, and wondered, "In the same situation, could I have done what he did?" I think every guy likes to believe if he was in that situation he would know exactly what to do and would be the hero, but that's easy to say when you don't have bullets striking near you.

Nathan, Jayson, and I kind of struck out on our own after that and wandered around the hospital talking about anything and everything except, much to my surprise, their experience's with the shooting. In fact the majority of the conversation was filled with jokes and stories about what was happening in my life.

The next several days were filled with time spent at the hospital, including overnight stays, split with jumping around from house to house spending time with the rest of the family. My other cousins and I tried to spend time with Anne Marie when she was awake which mostly amounted to watching part of a movie or TV show in her room until she was tired. Nathan and I also spent a lot of time taking full advantage of the food vouchers for the hospital cafeteria, a luxury that I'm sure ended up costing the hospital a bundle. But all the time spent eating together also gave us a chance to talk and reassured me that although he had been and was still going through something terrible, Nathan was going to be all right.

After about six days we left for home, back to "normal." In a way, we were again separated from the situation, because unlike the rest of the family, we could leave. Although we did get daily reports as to what was happening, what progress was being made and what struggles were yet to overcome, we weren't experiencing it. I still can't imagine the day-to-day struggles and strains that were put on our family in Colorado nor the full extent of the affects it had on them. I "escaped" and part of me feels guilty for that.

Many of my knee jerk reactions took me by surprise, but I chalk it up to maturity and the fact that you never really know how you'll react in difficult circumstances.

What my experiences from Columbine gave me was a sense of perspective. So many little things that would have caused so much stress now seem rather unimportant. Problems at work, home, driving (I do live in LA), grocery shopping, and so many others, they aren't life or death. Columbine really helped me realize, people are what is important, because you never know how long you will have them. I've had many "things" so far in my life, but none of them has given me the joy I feel when I see my family or a friend after a long absence. I've never missed any "thing" as much as I miss my grandparents. And I've never been so proud to hold some "thing" as I was when I first held my little niece. As with most people I'm sure I would have figured all of this out without having gone through my experience with Columbine, but then again maybe not.

I'll end this post with a special thank you to Brent Rockswold. Brent's love and support and his family's love and support throughout our healing journey following the Columbine massacre will never be forgotten.

Brent, hopefully you'll consider contributing more essays and insights in the future.

Love you and yours more than you'll ever know.

* Comments on this blog are moderated.