Mother's Reckoning : Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy (9781101902769)

by Klebold, Sue; Solomon, Andrew (INT)

  1/12 Tom is home from the hospital….Dylan has been so reclusive. We’ve hardly seen him & attempts to engage him have been futile. He didn’t even say hi to Tom or ask how he was. It was weird.

  In January, about three months before the tragedy, Tom had surgery to replace a portion of his left shoulder joint. I came home from the hospital in the evening to find Dylan had not done what I had asked him to do. I no longer remember what the chore was—probably cutting up some broccoli for dinner, or picking up a quart of milk from the store. A recorded message informed me that he had missed a class. The cats had not been fed, and Dylan was asleep in his room. I was disappointed and irritated he had dropped the ball while I was looking after his father in the hospital, and I told him so.

  I can’t count the number of times I’ve shared this story with other suicide loss survivors. “I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t pulling her weight!” a mother I met recently told me, the tears streaming down her face. “I told her to stop being so selfish!” Four days after the argument, her daughter was dead. Sometimes a kid messing up at school or coming at you with a bad attitude about helping at home isn’t a sign they need to be criticized and corrected, but a signal that they need help.

  Dylan often appeared tired, and I worried aloud about his course load and Blackjack schedule. Tom and I were both concerned about how listless and withdrawn he was during the week of Tom’s surgery, so we took him out for Chinese food as soon as Tom was up to it, a few days after the operation. The meal passed pleasantly, and we were placated.

  In retrospect, I can see how often Dylan expertly allayed our concerns whenever we raised them. I don’t know whether he was managing himself, or us—whether he was hoping whatever was wrong would get better, or that we wouldn’t notice how bad it was. He’d always been the kid we could rely on to do the right thing, the kid who wanted to take care of everything himself. So when he said he was okay, we believed him.

  His journals indicate a major sea change had taken place in his thinking. The entry on the twentieth of January reads: “im here, STILL alone, still in pain.” He has not died by suicide, and he is angry. The syntactical irregularities noted by Dr. Langman come fast and furious, to the point that much of the entry is almost incomprehensible. “I love her, the journey, the endless journey, started it has to end. we need to be happy to exist timely. I see her in perfection, the halcyons. Love it, endless purity.”

  It is possible that he was drunk, but there is a sense of fantasy becoming reality for him. “The scenarios, images, pieces of happiness still come. They always will. I love her. she loves me. i know she is tired of suffering as I am. it is time. it is time.” On the twenty-third of January, three days later, he secretly attended the Tanner Gun Show with Eric and Robyn, where they bought the shotguns they would use in the massacre and met Mark Manes, the young man who would sell him a TEC-9 semi-automatic pistol.

  The irony is that I was never happier than I was in the winter of 1999. The weekend after Tom’s surgery, Byron came over in the afternoon and the three men of the family worked on their respective cars, car parts scattered across the garage. Tom was not able to use his arms much, but he could give advice and oversee the work, and the three of them joked and helped each other.

  I stayed inside where it was warm, working on a painting while a pot of homemade chili simmered on the stove. When the guys came inside, I watched a Denver Broncos game on television with them, just so I could bask in the pleasure of having my family together. Time was flying—Dylan would be off to college in the fall—and I didn’t want to miss a single moment. After Byron headed home, Dylan and his dad drove off to rent a movie in Tom’s cherished, carefully maintained classic car. On the way back, Tom let Dylan drive it for the first time, and Dylan came home puffed up with pride.

  It had been an absolutely perfect day, a thought I recorded in my diary before bed. I feel so lucky and thankful, I wrote. This day was golden.

  Of course, I have wondered many times about the ease of Dylan’s deception. As it does for many people living with thoughts of suicide, making a plan may have made it easier for Dylan to function, and thus to mislead us into believing his life was turning around. It can be hard to differentiate between someone who is genuinely getting out of a cycle of depression, and someone who feels relief because they know they’re going to die. (Dr. Dwayne Fuselier, who spent much of his career with the FBI in hostage negotiation, tells his students to pay attention when a crisis negotiation seems to be going well for the same reason—sudden cooperation may mean the hostage taker has made a decision to die.) But I still cannot reconcile the kid cracking up with me over Alec Guinness in Kind Hearts and Coronets with the boy I saw on the Basement Tapes, a boy who had already started making plans to slaughter innocent classmates.

  The deception was universal. Two days after our chili dinner, Tom and I received an unexpected phone call from Dylan’s Diversion counselor. Unless we had any objections, he was recommending early termination from the program for both Eric and Dylan. This was terrific news. Early termination from Diversion is rare, awarded to only 5 percent of participants. Both boys had done exceptionally well, the counselor told us, and he was convinced they were on solid ground. It was ten weeks before the massacre.

  People tend to find this detail particularly upsetting, but it does not surprise me. If I didn’t know what was in Dylan’s mind—the child I bore and raised, who sat on my lap and emptied my dishwasher—then what on earth could a stranger have known? In his book The Anatomy of Violence, Dr. Adrian Raine cites a study in which children are left in a room and told not to peek at a toy when the experimenter leaves. Whether they do peek or not is caught on tape, as is their response—truthful or deceitful—when the experimenter returns and asks them if they did.

  When the “did you peek?” interviews were shown to undergraduate students, they guessed correctly which kids were lying only 51 percent of the time, only a little better than sheer chance. Next, the researchers brought in customs officials, who, as Dr. Raine points out, have lots of experience sniffing out people traveling with contraband. These seasoned professionals correctly guessed which kids were lying only 49 percent of the time, which is worse than flipping a coin.

  The researchers then brought in police officers to view the tapes. They guessed correctly 41 percent of the time—significantly worse than chance. You’d think it would be easier with the youngest children, but even four-year-olds could convincingly fool the pros. Somewhat gleefully, Dr. Raine sums up the study results: “Parents, you think you know what your kids get up to, but actually you don’t even have a clue with your own toddler. That’s how bad the story is. Sorry, mate, but you really are as hapless as I at figuring out who a psychopathic liar is.”

  It is a cold consolation to me. It does not surprise me that Dylan and Eric were able to deceive their teachers, a school counselor, Eric’s psychiatrist, and the Diversion specialists. But, until April of 1999, I would have told you Dylan couldn’t have fooled me.

  • • •

  The week after the call from Dylan’s Diversion counselor, his college acceptance letters started to arrive. Dylan had been accepted to one school in Colorado, wait-listed at another, and accepted to two in Arizona. He seemed lukewarm about the Colorado school, but pleased to have some options in Arizona.

  Life is falling into place for him, I thought as I arranged a dinner with the Harrises to celebrate the boys’ termination from Diversion. Though we had made efforts all year to keep the two apart, our concerns about their relationship had receded. Certainly, Eric had shown us he was impulsive and emotional, but he was under the close supervision of his parents, and he’d started seeing a therapist. The boys were about to graduate from high school, their mistakes behind them, and I was pleased for the families to be able to recognize their accomplishment. Life gives few enough opportunities to celebrate, and we had a great deal to be thankful for.

  Some weeks earlier, I had asked Dylan about his friends’ pla
ns. He said Nate, Zack, and some of the others were off to college; Eric was hoping to join the Marines. Before our dinner with the Harrises, I asked Dylan for an update on Eric’s plans. Joining the Marines had fallen through, he told me. Eric would be living at home, working, and attending community college instead.

  During this conversation, Dylan had a faraway look, which made me worry he was having second thoughts about his own college plans. After an initial flurry of excitement over a warmer climate, he’d withdrawn, becoming even more pensive and quiet than usual, as if he had something on his mind.

  “You’re sure you want to go away?” I asked. Some of our friends’ kids had started their college careers at community colleges closer to home, and I wanted to remind him there were other options. “I definitely want to go away,” he said, sounding decisive. I nodded, believing I understood: he was nervous, naturally, but ready, too. I think now he was talking about his own death.

  A couple of days later, we got written confirmation of the early Diversion termination. In his final report, dated February 3, Dylan’s counselor wrote:

  PROGNOSIS: Good

  Dylan is a bright young man who has a great deal of potential. If he is able to tap his potential and become self-motivated he should do well in life.

  RECOMMENDATIONS: Successful Termination

  Dylan has earned the right for an early termination. He needs to strive to self motivate himself so he can remain on a positive path. He is intelligent enough to make any dream a reality but he needs to understand that hard work is part of it.

  I finally allowed myself to exhale. Dylan was back on track. Maybe I had been overreacting by worrying so much about the theft. Boys did dumb stuff, as everyone said.

  Dylan’s journals tell a different story. By that point, things had decidedly taken a turn for the worst. Given the chance to travel back in time, I would ransack every nook and corner of my children’s rooms, looking not just for drugs or goods we hadn’t bought, but for any window onto their inner lives. There is nothing I wouldn’t give to have read the pages of Dylan’s journal while he was still alive, while we still had the chance to pull him back from the abyss that swallowed him and so many innocent others.

  Later in February, Dylan and I had a conversation about his senior year coming to an end, and he mentioned a senior prank. Assuming the whole class was involved, I asked him for details. He smiled, and said he did not want to tell me.

  He and Tom loved practical jokes, but the thought of a senior prank made me nervous. The Diversion counselor had been clear: even the smallest and most insignificant infraction, like toilet papering a house on Halloween, could jeopardize Dylan’s future. If he made another mistake, he’d have a felony on his record.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I warned him. He said, “Don’t worry, Mom. I promise I won’t get into trouble.” Diversion was officially over, but Dylan had one last appointment with his counselor, so I called and asked him to please make sure Dylan understood the seriousness of the situation he was in. I didn’t want him to take part in anything at school that might get him into more of a mess—no matter how silly, and not even if he did it with the entire senior class.

  His Diversion counselor spoke to him about it at their last appointment, and made the rules clear. Dylan never mentioned the topic of a prank to us again.

  • • •

  Cheez. I’m stuffed. We just got back from dinner with Eric Harris and his parents. We went there to celebrate the end of Diversion for Eric and Dylan. Just hope they will stay out of trouble now for a year so their records are expunged, whatever that means. My, I remember what we were going through a year ago!

  —Journal entry, February 1999

  We met Eric’s family on the second day of February at a local steakhouse. It had been nearly a year since we’d seen them. The six of us sat in two adjacent booths, with the four parents in one booth, Eric and Dylan in the next.

  When Eric’s mom said they weren’t sure what his plans were, I chirped that Dylan would be leaving for college in the fall. Secretly, I was relieved Dylan had a more concrete plan than Eric did. I will forever be humbled by the foolishness of my pride.

  Mid-February, Dylan came downstairs dressed to go to work, though he wasn’t scheduled. Eric’s dog Sparky was seriously ill, so Dylan had picked up Eric’s shift at Blackjack. I was fond of the little dog and felt sad for Eric; it’s hard to lose a pet, especially an animal you’ve grown up with. As he left the house, I gave Dylan a hug and told him how proud I was that he was such a responsible employee and a good and loyal friend.

  Later that week, the two of us looked at degree requirements for the schools he’d been accepted to, and we both revved up when we saw all the classes he could take. Tom grappled with financial aid forms while Dylan and I began to plan college visits.

  One night at the end of February, I surprised Tom and Dylan by bringing home a couple of fruit pies and Seven Samurai, a classic Japanese film from the 1950s directed by Akira Kurosawa. Dylan had heard about Seven Samurai in a class at school, and was curious about it. I’d never seen it, although I knew the American Western remake from the sixties, The Magnificent Seven. Snowy and cold outside, it seemed like the perfect night to light a fire, pig out, and watch a movie, but I worried about my choice as soon as the film began: I wasn’t sure Dylan was going to stick around for a long, black-and-white, subtitled movie about a sixteenth-century Japanese village.

  I was wrong. Dylan was spellbound; we all were. Poor Byron dropped in for an unexpected visit in the middle, and even though we couldn’t understand a word of the Japanese dialogue, we shushed him when he tried to talk. He sat down and tried to get into it with us, but he had the reaction I’d expected from Dylan. In a matter of minutes, he’d kissed me on the top of the head and let himself out. Rapt, we barely looked up long enough to say good-bye.

  After the closing credits rolled, Tom, Dylan, and I stayed up late on the couch, talking about some of the more remarkable scenes. Because he’d made videos and done sound for plays, Dylan had deep appreciation for the technical challenges the movie presented. He was particularly knocked out by a complicated choreographed battle scene staged in a downpour, which I would come to learn had inspired directors like Martin Scorsese. I was thrilled he’d appreciated the subtle artistry of the film.

  The first week of March, Dylan said he and some friends were going to the mountains to do an assignment for his video production class. Tom was scheduled for yet another surgery that week, to replace his right shoulder joint. I asked Dylan who was going on the trip, and who would be driving; I had not met two of the kids he mentioned. March is still winter in Colorado, and I reminded him to bring warm clothing, food, and water in case of a weather emergency. When I kissed him good-bye, I made him promise he wouldn’t trespass. It was public land, he assured me; one of the boys knew the area well. He told me they were making an action film in a natural setting, using toy guns. In truth, they were filming the “Rampart Range” video, which I did not see or even know about until we were deposed, four years after the tragedy. In it, Dylan, Eric, and Mark Manes—the man who sold them one of the guns—shoot the weapons they have stockpiled.

  On March 11, I took the day off so the three of us could visit the college in Colorado that Dylan had been accepted to. He was not overly enthused about the visit—he claimed to be intent on moving to a desert climate—but I was pleased to note he became more engaged when we took a tour of the computer lab. His academic performance in high school had always been a little mysterious to us; for someone who had shown so much early promise, he hadn’t excelled. Watching him on that campus, I felt sure he was going to thrive at college.

  That evening, Tom and I attended parent-teacher conferences at Dylan’s high school. We’d received a midterm report the previous week showing that Dylan’s grades had dropped precipitously in calculus and English. I was pretty sure it was “senioritis,” a high school senior goofing off after being accepted to college, but want
ed to touch base.

  Dylan’s calculus teacher told us Dylan sometimes fell asleep in class, and had not turned in some assignments. He’d taught Dylan before, and was disappointed Dylan wasn’t more motivated. I was bothered to hear Dylan was slacking off, but not alarmed.

  “Is he being disrespectful to you?” I asked.

  The teacher replied with amusement, “Oh, no, not Dylan. Dylan’s never disrespectful.” I wondered aloud if being a year younger than his classmates explained his immature attitude, or if he was blowing off the subject because he planned to take it again at college. Then I worried I was making excuses for Dylan, and I shut up.

  When I told the math teacher Dylan had been accepted at the University of Arizona, he seemed impressed and slightly surprised. When we mentioned the other Arizona university, he laughed and said, “Oh yes. That’s where all the jocks go after they flunk out of UCLA.” We later shared this comment with Dylan, who changed his mind about visiting the school. The upshot of our meeting was that Dylan wouldn’t fail the course if he went to class and turned in the overdue assignments.

  We sat down with Dylan’s English teacher next. She’d taught both of my sons, and I felt a comfortable familiarity with her. I was relieved to hear Dylan had turned in some missing assignments after she’d sent out the midterm report, and his grade had moved from a D to a B. His teacher also praised Dylan’s writing abilities. Tom and I were happily surprised. We’d always thought of Dylan as a math kid, and Byron as the son with the talent for language.

  After this praise, the tone of the conversation shifted, and she told us Dylan had turned in a disturbing paper. (Tom remembers the word she used as shocking, because he wondered if it was a reference to sexual content.) We asked for details, but she only said the paper contained dark themes and some bad language. To illustrate the inappropriateness of Dylan’s composition, she told us about a paper Eric had written, from the first-person perspective of a bullet being shot from a gun. Eric’s story, she told us, could have been violent, but when it was read aloud the class was amused. Dylan’s story, on the other hand, was dark. It had no humor in it at all.