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I remember it so vividly. Much like America remembers where they were when President Kennedy was assassinated. It was April 20, 1999 and I was a Sophmore at Colorado State University. I was getting ready for class, I lived in my sorority house at the time and one of the girls in the house showed up in my doorway… I was blow drying my hair. She said, you went to Columbine right? Don’t you have a brother that still goes there?” I confirmed and she told me there was a shooting and that I should turn on the news. My first thought was a single shooting not a full blown massacre. When I turned on the news,….. god I can’t even tell you what I felt like, I was speechless as was the rest of the nation. I immediately called my parents which I could not get through to and then tried my brother who was a Senior at the time, could also not get through to and started freaking out. I remember e-mailing my professor, grabbing a bag and taking off back home to Littleton. Soon after I was able to get a hold of my parents but we still could not get a hold of my brother. I remember listening to the radio the whole way down driving like a bat out of hell I’m sure. I’ve never seen the sky that color before, it was a darkish tone, almost green. It was so surreal. Of course everything was going through my head…. is he okay, where is he? is he dead, is he alive? It was nuts!! When I got home I was greeted by my parents and we all just lost it, there was nothing we could do but watch it all unfold on tv. Shots continued to be fired, a sign hung from a window pleading for help while a teacher was bleeding to death, it was the most horrible thing. I know I don’t have to tell you that…  I’m sure you were watching in horror yourself.

This all started happening during one of the lunch periods and I don’t think we were able to reach my brother until about four or five pm. I don’t even remember where he said he was, all I know was he had gone to the mall for lunch and when walking back to the building everyone was running out so he just followed suit and ran and hid. He tried calling us as well but again could not get through. We were so glad he was okay but so distraught not knowing who else was hurt. One of my best friends up the street, his little sister was in the library when the worst part happened, along with my old jewelry teacher Patty Neilsen. There was just so many people we knew, the people I graduated with also had younger siblings still there. When it hits this close to home, in your own backyard, it changes you. Scratch that, I think it changes everyone. For those of you who know nothing about Littleton, Colorado, it’s the last place on earth you would ever imagine something like this happening. Upper white middle class suburbia. The terror had only just begun for the multitude of families experiencing loss.

The hard part is even though those two boys comitted the most heinous act of terror, I felt for them. <enter gasp here>……. I might get a multitude of comments here on this blog but high school was tough for me.  I was a new girl as a freshman and people were just downright cruel, they hated me without even knowing me. Someone even went as far as to try and tag me with their bronco! Then I became mean,  in fact I was horrible to some people and for that I was always feel terrible about. Luckily those people were gracious enough to forgive me even after all of these years.  I know I don’t have to explain this to you, you went to highschool yourself, you may too have been either a giver or reciever of those acts of hate. I just remember being miserable because I always wanted to be accepted, always wanted to fit in and always wanted to be liked. I think if you were to ask people if given the chance, would they go back and do it different if they could?…. you couldn’t pay me enough money to do it again. Now as a parent I cringe for those days to come and I know they will be at my front doorstep a hell of a lot faster than I’d like to admit. So today my heart and my prayers go out to everyone who has struggled with this tragedy in years past and years to come. I pray that forgiveness can continue to take place. Mostly my prayer is that people, everyone, everywhere can learn to be respectful of other’s differences. Different attitudes, different opinions, different dress, different skin, different beliefs, just differences between each and every one of us. We are all so unique in our own way it’s amazing! I pray that we would embrace them instead of deny them. Were not put on this earth to hate, but to love… it’s unecessary strife. I remember you Columbine, I will always be a CHS Rebel. God Bless you.