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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