If I Don’t Make It, I Love You

COLUMBINE. I WAS twenty-one years old and in my last semester of college at Penn State University when I first heard that word. I lived off campus, so the bus ride in every day was around fifteen to twenty minutes depending on traffic. The news broke right as our ride started. Another student’s cell phone rang and he announced it to the group of us. A school shooting. A hostage situation. A world away in Colorado. A school shooting? I had never heard of such a thing. When I got to campus, there were whispers, but not one of my professors turned on the classroom television. I remember running straight home and watching in horror as newscasters interviewed anyone they could find, and a helicopter showed terrified students running from the school.

Because Columbine was the first school shooting that I remembered living through, it became a touchstone in my life, as it was for many of my generation. I often thought about those teenagers, especially since I was so close to them in age. As I graduated, found work, got married, and moved forward with my life, I was acutely aware that our lives were progressing at the same rate. Or were they? I wondered how they recovered and how they grew. How could they possibly move on from Columbine? That question began this entire project. What happened to those kids who survived Columbine?

I would find many answers. First, they were followed by the shooting. To be from Columbine meant something after 1999, a theme that shows up over and over again in this chapter. Coni Sanders, whose father, Dave Sanders, was the only teacher murdered at Columbine, writes, “Even now, when someone finds out about Dad, they stop and tell me where they were that day and what their experience was. They have no idea how hard that is.” Still, it’s hard not to personalize Columbine, since in many ways it feels like we experienced it collectively, as a country. In fact, didn’t I start this chapter in that exact way?

They were also followed by the trauma. Ted Zocco-Hochhalter writes about his daughter Anne Marie’s paralysis from one of the shooter’s bullets and how the trajectory of that bullet forever changed his family. “Six months after our daughter was shot at Columbine, Carla [Anne Marie’s mother and Ted’s wife] committed suicide with a gun. The tragic irony in that act haunts me to this day,” he writes.

Finally, what happened to those kids at Columbine was that they turned into amazing advocates, many working behind the scenes to help curb gun violence. Student Jami Amo, now a parent, has turned her attention to Moms Demand Action. “I realized that someday I need to be able to look my children in the eyes and say that I did everything I could to change this,” she writes. Another student, Heather Martin, is the cofounder of the Rebels Project, one of the largest networks of support in the country for survivors of mass shootings. Many of our contributors from other communities told me how this group helped them find normalcy and a sense of belonging after their own mass shooting.

Coni Sanders earned a master’s in psychology and works with offenders of violent crime, mostly men, to help better understand the root of violence. “In losing my dad, I found myself and my purpose in this harsh world. Holding the hands of felons, helping them find their own why,” she writes.

Even the teachers who lived through the shooting found a way to give back. Paula Reed, a teacher who saw several of her students murdered or wounded, was one of the teachers and community members who visited the teachers at Sandy Hook shortly after their shooting. “The teachers I met have mettle,” she writes, “they are hurt, and sad, and angry, and confused, and all the things the teachers at Columbine were, but I hope we looked like we had half as much grit back when we were six weeks out.”

When I finished compiling the stories in this chapter, I felt a light surrounding Columbine that I hadn’t felt in twenty years. They call themselves the Columbine Rebels for a reason. Each person in this chapter has blazed their own trail in some way. I am in awe of what they’ve accomplished.

AMYE ARCHER, EDITOR

JANUARY 2019

The following students and staff were shot and killed at
Columbine High School:

Cassie Bernall, 17, student

Steven Curnow, 14, student

Corey DePooter, 17, student

Kelly Fleming, 16, student

Matthew Kechter, 16, student

Daniel Mauser, 15, student

Daniel Rohrbough, 15, student

William David “Dave” Sanders, 47, teacher and coach

Rachel Scott, 17, student

Isaiah Shoels, 18, student

John Tomlin, 16, student

Lauren Townsend, 18, student

Kyle Velasquez, 16, student

RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME

By Coni Sanders

Coni Sanders’s father, Dave Sanders, was the only teacher killed at Columbine. He was shot several times as he ran toward the gunfire in an effort to save as many students as possible.

I don’t want to be a hero any more than Dad did, but last week a man who’d spent twenty-four years in prison called me just that. I suddenly felt life had come full circle since the day Dad was murdered and hailed a hero for saving hundreds of kids at Columbine High School.

Dave Sanders, my dad, was many things to many people. But to those who knew him best, he was just a normal guy. He loved coming home after school and watching TV with his dog, a mini poodle, while drinking a rum and Coke. He wore polyester pants, butterfly-collared shirts, and goofy owl glasses. He was everything to my mother. I don’t think he ever said no to her. If she wanted something, he would make sure she had it. As for us kids, if we needed guidance, he made sure we got it. To his students, he was more than Mr. Sanders, he was someone who tried to help them find their path in the world and who enjoyed reaching the “tough kids” by encouraging them to play sports and do well in school.

To his grandkids, Dad was the great entertainer. Every weekend, they would come over and he would have treats under their pillows such as puppets for the puppet theater he and Mom had made from wood. And he loved making their favorite bedtime snack, worms and dirt (Oreos, ice cream, and gummy worms).

He was also the only teacher killed at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. The world’s first glimpse of Dad was the ONE BLEEDING TO DEATH, as described in a sign made by students trying desperately to resuscitate him and keep him alive inside a second-floor science classroom. More importantly, and maybe most importantly, my father, Dave Sanders, was a hero. He ran toward the school that day while students ran away, fleeing for their lives. My father ran toward the screams, toward the shooters, toward the guns. And in doing so, he saved hundreds of students, while losing his own life. A colleague told us that his last words were “tell my girls I love them.”

In the days and weeks after Columbine, my family was swirled into a media nightmare. Our lives were no longer normal, no longer private. We’d spend years not saying where we were from or using our last name because people would want to talk about the worst day of our lives. Even now, when someone finds out about Dad, they stop and tell me where they were that day and what their experience was. They have no idea how hard that is.

Many reacted to the shooting by blaming the parents of the murderers, guns, violent videogames, prescription medication, music, and a myriad of other desperate grasps to help us understand why this happened. I felt differently. I kept wondering what was happening in the boys’ heads? What made them wake up on a Tuesday and try to blow up their school? How does that thought process turn to action and why? The boys who murdered Dad were in Diversion (a program for first-time offenders of crime), after they broke into a van. They received therapy and interventions, yet they still murdered people. Who could’ve helped them? I believed the key to why lay within.

I struggled to make sense of my own life after losing Dad. He’d always wanted me to go back to college, so I decided to honor him. I was in my third year of my bachelor’s program, working toward my business degree, when I took abnormal psychology. It was an eye-opener and I felt compelled to learn more. It was exhilarating thinking I might finally find the answer to the why I’d been searching for. What I found was—the why isn’t simple. I decided that if I couldn’t determine why Columbine happened, I’d at least try to prevent such atrocities.

The college I attended had a “Psychology of Violence” program. I took every class I could on the criminal mind. I didn’t tell anyone at the college about my Columbine connection. I feared that they’d change the curriculum to be sensitive or worse, give me a sympathy grade. Plus, everyone might want to share their “Columbine experience.”

Then, one day, I was outed. We hosted a guest speaker in my homicide class, and it happened to be the lead investigator for the Columbine massacre. She walked into the classroom and hugged me and asked how my mom was. I wanted to crawl under the table. My professors were angry at me for not sharing. I spent the rest of my time in school hearing everyone’s story about where they were when Columbine happened.

One day, the dean contacted me and said that I’d “accidentally” minored in psychology and asked if I wanted to change my degree program. I did. I graduated with honors and received an Educational Perseverance award, which revealed my Columbine connection in front of everyone at graduation.

I immediately enrolled in a master’s of psychology program. I wanted to have every tool I could to reduce violence in our society. When I finished, I had to find an internship site. I initially thought I’d go into grief counseling, but most grief counselors are volunteers. With $130,000 in student loan debt, a volunteer job wouldn’t work. After sending my information to every site in town, I was desperate. So when a little private practice that worked with offenders of violent crime, mainly domestic in nature, asked me to interview, I went. I didn’t know it at the time, but the universe was putting me exactly where I could do the most good.

The night before my first day, I tried to calm my husband’s fears about the fact that I’d be sitting in a room with men convicted of violent crimes committed mostly against women. There really wasn’t anything good to say about it, but he reluctantly agreed that I should go.

The next day, I expected to walk into a room of men in wifebeater tanks, dirty jeans, and face tattoos. I never expected what I found. A room of men from different backgrounds, some wearing business attire, some in jeans, none in wifebeater shirts and, in that group, no face tattoos. I was confused. These men were supposed to be scary and horrible and deserve punishment. Some talked about remorse for their actions, others about a desperate love for their children, and many wanted to learn more about how to be better men. They talked about what they thought before they did something terrible. One said, “It wasn’t like I just woke up one day and decided to do this.” Unlike the boys that murdered Dad, I learned most crimes aren’t planned out.

Shortly after starting this new work, it hit me. I’m the teacher like Dad, and these men are students who need me. I finally found where I belonged, in a room full of convicted felons, offering the same things Dad did to those “tough kids” he so often sought out: kindness and encouragement without judgment and an opportunity to work hard to improve their lives.

Last week, a man who spent twenty-four years in prison and calls me “White Bread” and swears I have more street cred than his homies, called me his hero. He said he was in the right place at the right time when he walked into my office. I cried. He had no idea why. At that moment, it occured to me that Dad was in the right place at the right time to save hundreds of his students, the way I’ve been in the right place at the right time to save my clients. In losing my dad, I found myself and my purpose in this harsh world. Holding the hands of felons, helping them find their own why.

Today, more than a decade after walking into that room for the first time, I’ve had thousands of clients go through my program. I meet each one of them as a person, not a felon, a batterer, or a gang member, but as a human being in need to compassion and guidance. My dad, Dave Sanders, the hero, the teacher, the loving husband, father, and grandfather, taught me this.

ESCAPING COLUMBINE

By Jami Amo

Jami Amo was a fifteen-year-old freshman at the time of the shooting.

It’s been nineteen years since the shooting at Columbine High School, yet the memories of April 20, 1999, have been woven among the fibers of my being. The cracking voice of the boy who came into the cafeteria shouting that someone had a gun, the unsettling thud of nearly four hundred people dropping to the floor simultaneously, how after being directed to run, those of us who had piled into the elevator had to close the doors in the faces of classmates desperate to flee. I can still smell the smoky hallway outside the library, thick with the stench of explosives, punctuated by gunfire. I still feel the distortion of time as we waited for the doors to close again. I remember the vibrations felt in between the rows of cushioned theater seats as a bomb went off in the cafeteria. And then after about an hour, the escape route, through a hallway to an exit.

I lived directly across the street from the high school, but the police had set up a perimeter to protect the crime scene, preventing me from crossing the street to my apartment building. Unable to go home, I spent the remainder of the day, and a portion of the night, wandering the neighborhood. I went to a neighbor’s house, turned on the news, and watched as my school filled the frame. Helicopters circled above. A sign plastered in a science room window, read ONE BLEEDING TO DEATH. A classmate jumped from a second-story window of the library, desperate for his own medical attention. The SWAT team postured outside the building for what seemed like forever. The images were surreal. I couldn’t watch anymore.

I ran to the nearby elementary school to scan the crowd for familiar faces and the list of known survivors for names I recognized. Classmates were telling stories from the terror inside, after they were evacuated from my school, which had now become the focus of the nation. I heard hushed whispers and cries about whom they’d seen shot, who was already dead. A friend waited for her brother’s name to appear on the list of survivors. Evening came, the waiting crowd dwindled, the last students were evacuated from the building, and the injured were identified. As darkness spread across the sky, only a small group of people remained, including my friend and her parents. Those twelve families were facing darkness indeed, as they would never again meet their child’s gaze, never again share an embrace, never again exchange I love you.

Our community was left to reconcile the horrific events of the massacre and bury our dead amid a throng of reporters and their cameras. Of course we were shocked. People around the world echoed what we felt: this was an unconscionable tragedy, something must’ve gone terribly wrong for this to take place in an American school, and we must do something to prevent another. If it could happen at Columbine, it could happen anywhere.

However, there was no sweeping legislation, and shootings kept happening. I turned to drugs and alcohol to cope with the overwhelming devastation I felt. I struggled to make sense of it. After all, I had escaped the building unscathed and hadn’t had any relatives or closest friends die. Why hadn’t I gotten over it as it seemed so many of my classmates had?

Ten months after the shooting, in the hours after midnight on Valentine’s Day, two of my tenth-grade classmates, a pair of sweethearts, were gunned down in a sandwich shop. The case remains unsolved. It was another shock to the community, and by the time a prominent student athlete committed suicide a few months later, I actually believed we’d been doomed, each of us, marked by fate.

The trauma from the shooting and the ensuing events weighed heavily on me. I felt guilt for surviving. I even felt guilt for feeling traumatized. I was haunted by the memory of Steve Curnow in the cafeteria at the beginning of the lunch period. Plagued with regret for things I didn’t know I should’ve done. I should’ve noticed the duffel bags in the cafeteria, I should’ve said something to Steve when he got up to leave for the library. I carried an endless stream of “should’ve’s” along with so many “what ifs” and “if onlys.”

Throughout high school, I refused to address my growing depression. I dulled myself with drugs and alcohol. Being under the influence allowed me to pretend my situation was under control, that I was okay. I barely held part-time jobs. I thought being away from the building would help me move on, so I skipped classes. I didn’t seek therapy. I thought I could do it myself. I was convinced there wasn’t any help to be had, because there wasn’t a therapist around who could tell me something I didn’t know about my own feelings. I was sure that I could self-medicate until I got over it.

Eventually, I learned to move past controlled substances and into healing. I allowed myself to feel the pain I had stifled for so many years, and I admitted that I still struggled with the aftermath of the shooting. I was living with post-traumatic stress disorder, and I was finally able to acknowledge it. My heart still pounds every time I use an elevator, I startle at every loud noise, and the state of heightened vigilance my body lives under leaves me on edge and exhausted, yet unable to rest. Over the years there’ve been hundreds of shootings in schools across the country. I brace myself for the onslaught of flashbacks and vivid nightmares in the weeks and months following each one.

In 2010, I became a parent for the first time, and found myself having new feelings about the shootings, more complicated feelings. I wasn’t only the teenage victim anymore, I had also become the frantic parent, wondering how my children would cope if they were among those who survived. After the tragedy at Sandy Hook, I was struck like never before with a deep sorrow. I was dismayed the deaths of those young children didn’t inspire a resounding call for change from legislators. I became more than cynical, I felt hopeless, and pondered my own children’s fate.

I watched one afternoon as my son’s kindergarten class was herded into the closet with their teacher for a lockdown drill. To follow protocol, I, as a classroom visitor, had to crouch under a shelf near the back of the room. I knew it was a drill, but I panicked. I did my best to push my feelings aside because there was another parent volunteer there, too, who had no idea I was at Columbine. That day, a wound opened inside of me, inflicted by the realization that we adapted our lives to allow for shootings in our schools, the people in charge didn’t care, and this cycle wouldn’t end. I wondered how long it would be until a shooting happens where I live, and which of my kids would be there.

I’m not sure why it took me so long, but in recent years I started to truly feel the weight of the damage done at Columbine. Here I am, alive, married, with my three beautiful, healthy children. The children of Dave Sanders have had to miss their father for nineteen years. There are no children for Lauren Townsend, Daniel Mauser, and Kelly Fleming. There was no graduation for Steve Curnow, Cassie Bernall, or Daniel Rohrbough. There was no marriage for Isaiah Shoels, Rachel Scott, or Corey DePooter. Since the shooting, I’ve had nineteen years of holidays with my family while the families of Matt Kechter, John Tomlin, and Kyle Velasquez had only those sixteen years’ worth of memories with their sons. There are those who still carry physical reminders of their wounds. Some of them never walked again. Layer after layer of damage done to the students, the staff, the families. And every town that has experienced a shooting is fraught with the same pains, rippling throughout for years to come. Hundreds of thousands of people have felt the same sorrow, borne from shock and terror, and growing sharper, perhaps concentrated, in some way, with time.

Almost twenty years after the shooting at Columbine, there was a mass shooting inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. It was obvious immediately that something in the response among survivors was different. I began to question if my lack of action was, in fact, part of the problem. My silence wasn’t helping to prevent gun violence and it wasn’t changing the minds of legislators or voters. I realized that someday I need to be able to look my children in the eyes and say that I did everything I could to change this. I decided it was time to speak out about my experience and the trauma of gun violence, and to join the advocacy groups I’d silently supported for so long, Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action.

It is difficult to put into words what I feel when there’s another school shooting, ushering some other community into our survivors collective. I feel angry, initially, and beyond heartsick for the loss of such precious, young life. I feel uneasy when I think about the painful experiences that will befall so many of the survivors of school shootings, the triggers that will send them into a panic at inopportune times for years to come. I question if they’re better prepared, having been trained to expect an active shooter in drills since grade school. I wonder if they resent us for having been unable to prevent it from happening. I fear the pattern of the news cycle that will leave their stories untold, and I dread the day when mental health support services will leave them behind too soon. I hope they will not stumble into the same darkness I did. I wonder how long the nightmares will plague them, and I think about how they will manage to send their own children to school one day.

ONCE A REBEL, ALWAYS A REBEL

By Heather Martin

Heather Martin was a senior at Columbine High School at the time of the shooting. She is the cofounder of the Rebels Project, a nonprofit organization connecting and supporting mass trauma survivors from across the country.

EDITOR’S NOTE: For more information on the Rebels Project, visit the website therebelsproject.org.

Two days after the mass shooting inside Columbine High School, I turned eighteen. Because we were seniors, April 20, 1999, became the last day of school at Columbine for the class of ’99. That meant I didn’t have a built-in, easily accessible support system as I started my life as an adult. Of course, those who went back to the school where the shooting occurred had a whole set of different struggles, neither one more difficult than the other, but going into the world surrounded by people who had no idea what I’d experienced felt isolating. And while I had some very supportive friends, it just wasn’t the same.

Like other survivors, I tried to get back to normal as quickly as possible. This need for normalcy is our way of trying to find solid ground after our worlds have crumbled beneath and around us. Only three months after graduation, I moved out and attended community college hoping to start fresh. Because the college was local, I was often blindsided by people bringing up the shooting during casual conversations, class discussions; it was even mentioned in my college textbooks. The word “Columbine” became a trigger for me, and any mention of the event caused me to shut down and shut off.

In one class, the assignment was to write an argument paper on gun violence and gun laws. Somehow, I worked up the courage to tell the professor that I couldn’t write about the topic. I even told her I was a Columbine graduate. Her response—write the essay or fail the class. I failed the class.

On another day, the fire alarm went off and I froze at my desk with tears streaming down my face. Eventually, I made it outside, where I found a friend who offered to tell my professor why I wouldn’t be coming back to class after the drill. The professor shrugged and said she would mark me absent. After having been met with such disregard for my feelings and my experience, one that I was just barely beginning to process, I shut down even more and stopped talking about it. This led to intense feelings of isolation and embarrassment. In the months and years following the shooting, after all the “what-if” scenarios had played out in my mind and dreams, I kept asking myself why I wasn’t over it, why was I still scared of loud noises and libraries?

I worked to stay busy. I worked three jobs in addition to being a full-time student. Looking back, I think these jobs helped me to avoid school, academics, and thinking about the shooting. To help me feel in control of my life, I developed an eating disorder. At one point, I didn’t eat for two weeks and ended up in the hospital. However, I refused to quit any of the jobs I was working.

Eventually, I dropped out of college, even after attending formal therapy. I spent years struggling, feeling more and more lost as each new shooting happened. One huge step toward my recovery was being invited back into the school for the tenth anniversary, where I was able to connect with classmates I hadn’t seen in years. With my newfound informal survivor support system, I was able to reenroll in college, where I majored in English and obtained my teaching license. Then, in my final year of college, there was a shooting at a theater in Aurora. Two days later, I received a text from a friend, a fellow 1999 graduate from Columbine High School, asking: “how do you feel about starting a support group for survivors?”

Two minutes later, I replied: “I’m in.”

Thus began another huge step in my journey to healing.

I was just beginning my first year of teaching when Jennifer Hammer and I started the Rebels Project, named for the Columbine High School Mascot—the Rebels. Both of us had barricaded ourselves with fifty-eight other students in a small office adjacent to the choir room for just over three hours on April 20, 1999. We knew panic, we knew fear. And we knew that we and many of our classmates were still struggling, even thirteen years later, from the trauma we experienced on that day. The shooting in Aurora opened up the floodgates for us, and we were ready to help in a way that only other survivors could understand.

Desperate to provide a resource that we hadn’t had, the Rebels Project began holding monthly support meetings where survivors could talk to other survivors and relate to each other on a level deeper than when outsiders asked “Oh, you were there? Was it scary? What did you see?” Because of the success of the monthly support meetings, we began fund-raising to bring survivors from around the country together for a weekend gathering. From there, we started traveling to impacted communities to offer our support.

One of the unique qualities about our nonprofit is that our leadership team is made up of all survivors, from Columbine: Amy Over, Zachary Cartaya, and Missy Mendo, from the Washington Navy Yard shooting: Sherrie Lawson, and from the Aurora theater shooting: Chelsea Sobolik. Together, with the help of survivors from around the world, we work to provide systems of support for survivors in need. While I wish I could say that these are easy to provide given that we have all experienced a mass shooting, that is not always true, though it does help us immeasurably because in essence, it’s the helplessness survivors feel that drives this work.

We counteract that helplessness in the best way we know how—by reflecting on what we experienced, on what worked and didn’t work for us, and on how best to fill the gaps that each of us has experienced throughout our recovery journey. As a survivor network, the Rebels Project helps fill those gaps for others so the journey is less lonely and less isolating. the Rebels Project offers survivors a way to support others and help alleviate the helpless feeling we experience after every subsequent shooting.

In April 2017, we had a little over four hundred members in our private online support group. Now, we have over nine hundred from approximately fifty different survivor communities. We always say that we are so happy that new members are finding us, but so terribly sad that there is a need.

Since starting the Rebels Project, I’ve learned so much about my own recovery journey. I’ve also learned how much connecting with others can help heal. The importance of connecting with others is invaluable. Today, we travel the country meeting with survivors and speaking at various conferences so others can help fill some of the gaps we experienced along the way. The best part is that each member contributes and can offer their unique insight, which in turn supports other members, so we always have someone to reach out to when we need it, in many ways transforming us from victims into survivors. Of course we wish we weren’t needed. But the truth is: we are. Now more than ever before.

ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES

By Ted Zocco-Hochhalter

Ted Zocco-Hochhalter’s daughter, Anne Marie, was critically injured in the Columbine High School shooting. Carla, Ted’s wife and Anne Marie’s mother, took her own life six months after the shooting.

As the years come and go the school massacre known as Columbine continues to affect people in different ways based on each individual’s personal experiences of that day and the healing process they’ve gone through since April 20, 1999. Count me among that group of people. The massacre ended that day, but even after the last shots were fired and the last explosives detonated, the events of April 20 continued and multiplied for everyone affected including me.

I was in Seattle on business when Columbine began. I really disliked the travel my job demanded. My kids were growing up and my first wife, Carla, was suffering from a deep and pervasive mental illness first diagnosed in 1996. I felt guilty being away so much.

The meeting I anticipated would take at least eight hours, only took four. Meaning I might be able to make an afternoon flight home. I called United to see if that might be possible. It was. My reservation would get me to Denver about 5:30 p.m. instead of flying out the next day.

All that remained was calling Carla and asking her to pick me up in Littleton. I borrowed my colleague’s cell phone and dialed. A couple of rings and she picked up. Carla asked me if I’d been watching the news. I responded that I hadn’t. She began telling me about Columbine.

“There’s been a shooting,” she said in a panicked voice. “Anne Marie has been hurt, and I don’t know where Nathan is.” My initial reaction was disbelief. My hands began to shake and my stomach churned with nausea—the bile rising in my throat. My daughter was shot at school? Who did it? Where was Nathan? None of it made any sense.

Carla tried to get to the school, but had been turned away at a checkpoint by someone she didn’t know. This person told her they thought Anne Marie’s injury was to her ankle and advised Carla to go home and wait. She went home believing Anne Marie would be okay. I explained to her my meeting ended earlier than expected and that I’d be home later that afternoon. Her relief was palpable.

I felt helpless. I was two hours away by air; I had at least a three hour wait until my plane took off. My anxiety meter was close to being pegged. Frantically, my colleagues and I tuned into different stations on the car radio in an effort to get whatever sketchy information we could. The stations were saying shooters were inside the school and there were injuries and maybe fatalities.

That’s when it started sinking in that it was something that would change our family and our lives forever. I knew that once I got to the airport I could call my family back from a pay phone. I had to trust they were handling everything until I got there. The rest was out of my control.

My colleagues didn’t know what to say as they dropped me off at departures. They wished me well, and I thanked them. When I reached my gate the scenes on TV were playing out. Media helicopters hovering over the school were filming images of kids running across the lawn and down the sidewalks with hands clasped over their heads. I searched furiously for any sign of Nathan. I tried to imagine what Nathan wore that morning, the colors of his clothing, book bags, anything. His height should make him distinguishable, his gait unmistakable. Any sign that he was alive and okay.

Police were everywhere and herded terrified kids to a nearby fenced area out of harm’s way. Squad cars lined up in a row outside the cafeteria with police pointing weapons at the school. Ambulances were there, too. I looked around at others in the boarding area. No one spoke. Their eyes were glued to the screen. They wore horror on their faces.

The media was saying all kinds of things. No one seemed to know who or how many people were shooting. I had trouble breathing. The fear, concern, and helplessness exacerbated my need to get home. I couldn’t control the panic the anxiousness and waiting were causing. It’s as if there was a timer, an hourglass in my brain and it was quickly draining of sand. I had to get home.

There was a pay phone in the waiting area. My hands shook as I pressed the numbers. I asked Carla if she had any new information. She told me Anne Marie had been shot in the chest, not her ankle, and she was on the way to the hospital. She still didn’t know where Nathan was. I didn’t know if Carla could handle anything more serious.

I hung up and called my sister, Belva, who told me Carla was being taken to the hospital by some neighbors to be with Anne Marie. I asked her about Nathan. She didn’t know where Nathan was or whether he was all right. Her husband, Marc, was at Leawood Elementary School, a nearby reunification point, looking for him. She told me Marc would pick me up at the airport when I arrived in Denver to take me to the hospital.

Belva also told me Anne Marie was shot while eating lunch outside the cafeteria with her friends, Jayson and Kim. When they realized shots had been fired, Jayson and Kim ran toward the cafeteria for shelter believing Anne Marie was with them. When they realized she wasn’t, Jayson ran back for her. He had to abandon those plans when he came under attack himself. Later I would learn one of the shooters had looked straight at Kim before turning and shooting at Anne Marie, whose back was to them. We hung up, and I went to sit down again.

A man sat beside me and began talking about how horrible this was. I don’t know why, but I blurted out that my kids were in that school. To my surprise he gave me a hug, whispered in my ear that he wished me well, and moved off somewhere out of sight. He never told me his name and I never saw him again. His act of kindness helped me feel a bit better and reduced my anxiety somewhat.

Eventually, it came time to board. My pulse was racing.

I found my seat. A woman sat down in the seat next to me. I didn’t converse with her. Her husband and little boy sat in the row in front of us. She was preoccupied with taking care of her son and didn’t try to start a conversation with me, either. I was grateful for that. The plane backed away from the gate and, as we began to taxi toward the runway for takeoff I suddenly felt faint, and began to tremble again.

It wasn’t until we were in the air that I finally asked a flight attendant for information from Denver if she could get it. She asked me why I needed information. That’s when I broke down and began to cry. I can’t remember exactly what I told her, but I know it tumbled out of my mouth as if someone else was saying it. I’m surprised she even understood me.

The woman beside me overheard. She told the flight attendant she was a doctor. I tried to explain to her what was going on at Columbine and that I needed info because my kids were in that school. She demanded I be taken into first class so I could get off the plane first. The flight attendant agreed.

A horrific headache set in.

After I sat down in the first row next to the exit door, the captain of the aircraft came out and sat next to me. I remember him telling me he had a daughter about Anne Marie’s age and that he couldn’t imagine the emotions I must be feeling. I saw tears well up in his eyes. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. In a very calm voice he said that the flight would be changing, that we were going to go “as fast as this bucket of bolts will go,” about two thirds the speed of sound.

He’d declared an onboard emergency. That meant we were going in with absolutely no delays. Someone in Denver wanted us to taxi into a holding area because we were arriving way ahead of schedule. The captain told them to either find an empty gate or he would find one himself and dock there. The last thing he told me before going back into the cockpit was that our descent into Denver would be fast and very steep. I didn’t believe him, but I should have. He wished both me and my family well and went back into the cockpit.

At least I didn’t feel so alone anymore.

The aircraft began accelerating. The flight attendants hovered, not knowing what to do. No announcement was made regarding an onboard emergency. Some passengers were visibly antsy. Even the flight attendants looked a little nervous.

My headache intensified.

We touched down hard in Denver and careened off the runway into the taxi lane. I was scared. The plane arrived at the gate. I could feel the jet walk bump against the aircraft.

As we prepared to deplane I stood there nervously waiting for the door to open. When it finally did I ran toward the Concourse up the Jetway.

Four Denver police officers were waiting for me. My sister, Belva, had called ahead to let them know I was on this flight and that they were to detain me until her husband, Marc, got there. When I saw them I thought the worst had happened. The four of them surrounded me protectively trying to reassure me no news was good news, and that Marc was on his way. All we could do was wait. Finally, I saw Marc. He told me Nathan was okay. I almost collapsed with relief.

Soon we were in Marc’s truck and on our way to the hospital. He told me Anne Marie was in emergency surgery and that her condition wasn’t good. I went numb. Good news, though, was that Nathan was safe after Marc found him at the reunification point. He told me it was a chaotic scene. Nathan had been on the very last bus coming from Columbine, and the police refused to release him or any of the kids. It wasn’t until Marc told them about Anne Marie that they let them leave. Now, Nathan was safe and waiting for us at the hospital. It’s hard to put into words my gratitude to Marc and Belva for what they did. They helped reunite my family under the worst of circumstances, while still worrying about and tending to their own children.

In Marc’s truck, we listened to the radio. Media reports were still sketchy. When we arrived at Swedish Medical Center, we had to sneak in. Media vans were everywhere.

Carla and Nathan were there. Trying to get to them was emotionally like slogging through knee-deep mud—my legs were shaky, unsteady. I hugged Nathan tighter than I ever had. He seemed to be holding himself together pretty well given what he’d been through. Carla seemed eerily calm, almost too calm. But given her earlier near panic on the phone with me, I was glad to see her this way. She relayed what little she knew. Anne Marie’s wounds were much worse than we first believed. I had to see Anne Marie. She’d already been moved to the Critical Care Unit. That’s where we headed. Marc then left to be with his own family.

The door to Anne Marie’s room was closed. Access to the room was restricted even for us. Chances for infection were just too great. Straining to get a closer look through the window, I could barely make out Anne Marie’s face. She was almost unrecognizable; ashen. Her face was all I could see. Everything else was under blankets. The room was dark, the only ambient light coming from the nurse’s station outside and from the monitors on each side of her bed. Her eyes were closed. A tube trailed out of her mouth down the side of the bed to the unit keeping her breathing. One of her lungs had collapsed. Tubes inserted into her lung through the side of her chest stuck out from under the blankets; each of them containing pinkish fluid from her lung dripping slowly into a plastic bag. There was no movement from her, not even a twitch. If I hadn’t been reassured by hospital staff, I would have thought she was dead.

I couldn’t breathe. My knees began to buckle. I had to lean against the wall to steady myself. Nathan, Carla, and I silently embraced, each of us with our own thoughts and emotions. A while later Nathan left to be with his friends, perhaps to commiserate on the events of the day.

Much later that night, three paramedics who rescued so many injured kids earlier that day asked through the hospital public affairs officer if we might let them see Anne Marie. They wanted to pay respects and to make sure she was still alive. They needed reassurance and to see for themselves that their actions were not in vain. There was no hesitation in granting their request.

John, the paramedic who rescued Anne Marie, shared some harrowing details of her rescue. He had thought she was dead and almost passed on trying to rescue her. Then, he saw a slight movement of her hand, and she mouthed the words “help me.” He picked her up and got her out under police cover who opened fire on the library above as he got her into the ambulance.

The emergency room doctor told us when she arrived, Anne Marie was bleeding out internally. He also told us they thought she was already gone, so they opened her chest more to try and determine a cause of death than anything. They detected a faint heartbeat and immediately moved her to the operating room. That she survived the radical procedure was astonishing.

The trauma surgeon who performed her lifesaving surgery in the OR had combat experience. That factored into Anne Marie making it through what can only be described as something she should not have. Even then, he told us Anne Marie might not make it. I got the distinct feeling he was preparing us for the worst. He told us she may have brain damage because during surgery her aorta had to be clamped off at intervals in order to make repairs to vital organs and to her vena cava vein. That procedure also cut off oxygen to her brain. There was no way to tell until she regained consciousness. He also cautioned she might suffer respiratory failure, which would be fatal. She suffered multiple injuries to vital organs including possible spinal damage.

Every doctor tried to prepare us for the worst. They told us her odds of making it through the night were less than 25 percent. They expected her to die. The hopelessness we felt was like falling into a very deep abyss. The doctors told us we should start thinking about whether or not to donate organs if Anne Marie didn’t make it. Carla refused to talk about it. I let it be. It could be dealt with later—if it came to that.

The visiting area was swamped with people throughout the night. It got so overcrowded the Critical Care nurses called security to maintain order. Reporters were swarming outside the hospital trying to get a scoop. There were no opportunities to escape, to even take a breath. Carla and I began wandering the halls late into the night. The back halls were almost deserted at that hour and provided a brief respite. We didn’t speak. We just walked. Our thoughts were our own, and that’s the way it stayed throughout that excruciatingly long night.

When April 21, 1999, dawned, it was cold and rainy. A pall hung over the families whose lives were irrevocably altered by Columbine, including ours.

Anne Marie made it through the first night. There would be more nights to come where we wouldn’t be sure she’d survive. We were told she would not be out of the woods for at least the first two weeks minimum. That she eventually did get out of those woods is a miracle.

Anne Marie’s injuries caused other life-threatening issues. The pericardial sac around her heart filled with fluid that had to be surgically removed. Her lung collapsed again. She couldn’t speak because of the intubator. She was fed via a tube through her nose into her stomach. For the first two weeks, she was heavily drugged and almost comatose. She couldn’t move on her own.

Anne Marie’s pain was palpable. We could only imagine how she was dealing with any of this emotionally or psychologically. Nathan’s pain was emotional and psychological. All he wanted to do was to be with his friends who’d gone through what he had. We seldom saw him for those reasons. We didn’t leave the hospital. There was a pervasive fear Anne Marie could die at any time. We would never be able to forgive ourselves if that happened and we weren’t there. Carla’s illness rendered her virtually incapable of participating in making any decisions at all. The responsibility, for the most part, fell on me. There’s no shame in that. Nor is there any blame. It just was.

The tragedy at Columbine changed us as a family. For Carla, the physical and emotional toll of the tragedy must have been too much. Six months after our daughter was shot at Columbine, Carla committed suicide with a gun. The tragic irony in that act haunts me to this day.

It’s been said when events shake us to our core, we either rise to the challenges they present or not. I’d like to believe I rose to the challenges thrown at me by Columbine. There are latent emotional and psychological scars, to be sure. With every new mass shooting, those emotional and psychological scars get ripped open every single time. It’s like I’m reliving the events of Columbine on an endless loop.

I did not believe I would ever experience true love and happiness ever again. Then Katherine came into my life, and we were married three years after Columbine. Three new children entered my life, as well; Shawn, Jessi, and Robert (Bobby to his family). Bobby did me the honor of allowing me to adopt him on Valentine’s Day 2005.

Nathan is doing well. It wasn’t always that way. He struggled with his experiences that day for a very long time. He didn’t say much about his own experiences then. He doesn’t say much now. That’s his coping mechanism, and I honor that.

Anne Marie chose a separate path. Tragedy tends to do that to families—sometimes it binds you, sometimes it breaks you apart. I can only hope she’s doing well.

There are no fairy-tale endings to events like Columbine. There can be progress. There can be healing. There can be recovery. There can be happiness and newfound love. Those are the things I try to focus on now. I’ve faltered along the way. I’ve stumbled more than a few times. I’ve even fallen down on a few occasions. Getting back up was sometimes slow and painful, but I did it every time with the love and support of family and friends.

ROADS NOT TAKEN

By Paula Reed

Paula Reed was an English teacher at Columbine High School for thirty years. Two of her students were among those killed in the shooting. This piece was written after Paula met with the teachers from Sandy Hook six weeks after they suffered their own mass shooting.

As an American literature teacher, it’s pretty much de rigueur that I love Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken.” I’ve always tended to view the paths as friendly, dappled in shade, but mostly sunny. As described, one is more worn than the other. I’ve thought about it differently this past weekend.

I found myself saying several times to various people that they are entering a dark forest, and they must keep in mind that, no matter how dark it gets, every step in is a step out, because the only way out is through. I went to assure them that sunlight lay at the far edge of the forest. I kept my focus there on the way to Sandy Hook.

Of course, many of their questions were less about what lay ahead than what path to take now. I could tell them the paths I’d taken, but there were other ones I’d passed up, and you know, “way leading unto way” and all that, I could tell them I wish I’d taken some, but I can’t really know whether those would have gotten me through the wilderness any faster, any easier, with any fewer contusions on my soul.

I wish I’d said yes to meds sooner. I wish I’d found a better fit in a therapist, rather than giving up and going it alone. In part because I didn’t go it alone. I wonder how much more arduous my choices made my husband’s journey.

I wonder who I would have been when I reached the other side if I’d taken those other routes. Would I have become an author? Would I have left Columbine in 2002 never to return? Would I have left at all, even those two years?

I mean, who would I be now, and would I like her as well? All modesty aside, I very much like who I am now. Would it really have been better to medicate earlier and take a therapist along with me? It’s so hard to know what to tell people.

I do know that I would spare them the pain of the journey through these woods, but I can’t, and it wouldn’t be my place anyway. They’ll find their own ways. They’ll call to one another in the darkness, as we did. And I will keep cheering them on, shouting “Keep coming! Keep coming!”

And they’ll make it. The teachers I met have mettle. They are hurt, and sad, and angry, and confused, and all the things the teachers at Columbine were, but I hope we looked like we had half as much grit back when we were six weeks out.

The paths before them are dark and scary, and none are all that well traveled (thank God). The folks at Sandy Hook, too, will choose. They will be glad they made some choices and wish they’d made some different ones. I hope we all stay in touch throughout the journey. I so want to greet them as they come to the far edge.