Difficult Days

When you lose a child, whether it’s to disease, accident, or murder, there obviously are many difficult days.  But especially notable are the recurring days.  That is, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mothers Day, Fathers Day, and your child’s birthday, can be very painful days without your child.  Not just once, but every year. 

Certainly, one of the more difficult is the “anniversary” of your child’s death.  Yet, when you’re part of a mass murder like Columbine, it’s common for the community to observe that day with special commemorative events to reflect on and honor the victims.  To us, they were special days for the community, the media and the world, and we appreciated that effort.  But they were not special for us.  We often didn’t attend any of these events.  For us that day was an awful day we couldn’t wait to end. 

Yet, surprisingly, we did at least have some hopeful signs on a few of those anniversaries.  Below are some special reflections on a few of those notable anniversaries. 

The First Anniversary

There were a couple of major community events to mark the first anniversary, but we knew it would be too difficult to attend any of them.  So instead we drove Christie and a friend to the resort town of Glenwood Springs to swim in the huge hot springs pool and bike ride in Glenwood Canyon.  There’s not much else I remember other than the tension and pain. 

The Second Anniversary

We stayed in town for the second anniversary but didn’t go to any events.  We began our new annual tradition: we made the 24-mile trek to Mt. Olivet Cemetery to visit Daniel’s grave and put new artificial flowers in the built-in vase, as well as to visit the graves of Kelly Fleming and Matt Kechter. 

But what was amazing was the drive to the cemetery.  Elsewhere I mention the amazing and comforting sight of a herd of deer as we drove along the C-470 highway on our way to bury Daniel.  As we drove along C-470, I was looking hopefully for a sighting of deer.  No luck.  I mentioned it to Linda.  She said she had also been looking, to no avail.  But then, just as C-470 merged into I-70. At the base of Green Mountain, in the last piece of grassland before a suburban herd of houses, we saw a herd of deer!  We were astounded!  In subsequent years we have always looked again for a herd of deer, but to avail.  Perhaps we were asking for too much.  Perhaps we just didn’t need that comforting sign any more.  Perhaps it was being delivered to other grieving parents in our position. 

The Fifth Anniversary

In some ways the fifth anniversary was a little tougher—because of all the media attention on it being the fifth, with all the horrifying video clips from the tragedy. But that goes with the territory.  The day started early for Tom, as he agreed to appear on some morning television programs. It was the first time he did so on a Columbine anniversary.  While we didn’t see a herd of deer or have the clouds at the cemetery move aside and make way for a bright display of sunshine, we nonetheless had a sign of comfort, thanks to Madeline. Madeline wanted to walk around the cemetery and see all the pretty flowers. She was wild and full of energy.  As we slowly walked back towards Daniel’s grave, we briefly lost sight of Madeline.  Suddenly I noticed her—she had found her way to Daniel’s grave and was just sitting there peacefully facing the headstone, with her hands neatly folded. It was an unexpected and unscripted moment of joy that brought tears to my eyes.

Our First Vacation after Columbine

We decided we had to get away to someplace special.  It was July of 1999.  I attended a work conference in Sacramento, so we decided to have Linda, Christie and a friend of hers fly in to meet me after the conference and visit San Francisco.  We did our best to keep it upbeat for the teens, but it was difficult.  On the first day in San Francisco I developed very severe lower back pain.  I had a very difficult time walking or even moving, and had no idea what led to it.  I managed to get in to see a chiropractor.  He had an idea of the cause, once I told him about Columbine: it was tension related. 

My only other memory was being in a gift shop and having an employee ask me where we were from.  “Colorado.”  “Oh, where in Colorado?” she inquired.  “Littleton.”  Damn, I should have just said Denver, not Littleton, because next she came back with, “Oh, that’s where that terrible high school shooting was. Oh, how terrible…”  My God, I thought, can we not get away from this?…