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

by Klebold, Sue; Solomon, Andrew (INT)

  Her comments on the paper, which I did not see until a year later, read as follows: “I’m offended by your use of profanity. In class we had discussed the approach of using $!?* Also, I’d like to talk to you about your story before I give you a grade. You are an excellent writer/storyteller, but I have some problems with this one.”

  During our conference, Tom asked, “Is this something we should be concerned about?” Dylan’s teacher said she thought it was under control. She’d asked Dylan to do a rewrite, and planned to show the original to Dylan’s guidance counselor. Since I never wanted to leave a meeting without an action plan, I asked, “So, one of you will call us if you think this is a problem?” She confirmed they would.

  She did show the paper to Dylan’s counselor, who chided him about the language. I had the opportunity to meet with the counselor after the tragedy; he was understandably stricken by his failure to recognize an incipient threat. The professionals I have spoken with are divided on whether Dylan’s paper (and possibly Eric’s) would today qualify him for a screening in a public school system with a threat assessment protocol. It’s entirely possible that both would have gone unremarked: teenage boys often write disturbingly about guns and violence. True threat assessment, though, is all about assembling disparate clues to arrive at a full picture, and it’s likely that Dylan’s arrest, his suspension in junior year, and the disturbing paper would together have added up to a red flag.

  We did not perceive the paper to be a red flag, though, and the events of the rest of the night contributed to diminish the relative importance of it. Since no one else was waiting to talk to the English teacher, we continued to visit with her. I mentioned a presentation I’d seen about the differences between Generations X and Y children. We chatted about the district’s language arts curriculum and one of the required reading books, A Prayer for Owen Meany.

  We were all roughly the same age, and the three of us mused about what it had been like to be young during the Vietnam War. This prompted Dylan’s teacher to share a story. She’d brought a folk record from the sixties, “Four Strong Winds,” into class. The song featured the hardships faced by migrant farm workers, and it had always made her cry; but her students had laughed when she played it.

  Tom and I leaned forward with concern. “Did Dylan laugh too?” She told us he had. I was bitterly disappointed; he often watched classic movies with us, and I would have expected better. Tom and I apologized for the insensitivity of our son and his classmates, and the three of us commiserated over the youth of today, like old-timers sitting on a park bench. We shook hands warmly when we parted.

  It was Dylan’s reaction to the song—not the paper—that Tom and I talked about on the way home. I hated that he’d laughed when his teacher shared a piece of art that moved her. Tom could never part with old books, science journals, or car parts, and his piles of junk ordinarily drove me nuts. That night, though, I appreciated his idiosyncrasies as he dug out the old record. We sat in the living room with a cup of tea, and I gave myself over to the song’s melancholy refrain.

  Tom saw an opportunity to teach Dylan a lesson, and to have a bit of fun, too. When he heard Dylan’s car coming up the driveway, he queued up the record. When Dylan came in, we told him about the meetings with his teachers. Tom remembers that we talked about the paper during that discussion and asked him to get it for us; I don’t remember asking for the paper until the following morning. As we talked, Tom hit Play. Eventually, Dylan recognized the song coming up in the background. Knowing he’d been set up, he started to laugh.

  “Why are you playing that horrible song?!”

  “Why is it horrible?” I asked him. He said he hated the “weird” sound of it. We told him what the song was about. “Just listen to it with an open mind,” Tom requested. Without protest, Dylan listened to the rest of the song. When it was over, he admitted it wasn’t that bad.

  We told him how hurt his teacher had been, and talked about the importance of respecting the feelings of others. He admitted it had been wrong to laugh. Afterward, the three of us curled up on the couch to watch one of our favorite movies, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. As we headed off to bed, Tom and I felt we had provided the best guidance we could. I will never know if Dylan was pretending to care, or if he did.

  The next morning, I asked Dylan to show me the English paper. He said it was in his car and that he didn’t have enough time to look for it. I said, “Well, I’d like to see it when you get home from school today. When will you be home?” He said, “I won’t have time today because I have to work.” I gave him a look that said, “Stop making excuses,” and added with finality, “I want to see the paper. You can show it to me tonight when you get home.” He said he would. But by the time evening came, Tom and I had both forgotten about it.

  This lack of follow-through on my part was uncharacteristic, but indicative: I believed Dylan was a psychologically healthy human being. I never considered that the paper could be a reflection of deeply seated problems. I knew it contained some rough language and a dark theme, but had confidence that his teacher and the school counselor would handle the situation appropriately. If anything, I was interested in taking a look at Dylan’s writing skills.

  I finally saw Dylan’s paper for the first time more than a year after his death; a copy of the story was among some of the items returned to us by the sheriff’s department. The subject matter—a man dressed in black who kills the popular kids at a school—was indeed disquieting, but I cannot help but wonder if, as an artist myself, I would have seen it as a danger sign if I had read it before his death. Artistic expression, even when it’s unpleasant, can be a healthy way of coping with feelings. I abhorred the violence so attractive to teenage boys—I could no more sit through an entire viewing of Pulp Fiction than lay an egg—but I never imagined Dylan would be capable of making that violence real.

  • • •

  That spring, whenever Dylan wasn’t busy, and the world slowed down around him, I noticed how pensive and distracted he looked. A month or so before the shootings, I approached him one afternoon as he sat on the couch staring blankly into the middle distance.

  “You’re so quiet lately, honey. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  He stood up and said, “Yeah, I’m just tired and have a lot of homework to do. I’m going up to my room to get it done so I can get to bed a little early.”

  “All right,” I said. “You want me to make you something to eat?” He was also very thin in those last months. He ate well at home, but I wondered if he was getting enough when he wasn’t there, and would often offer to make him French toast or an omelet between meals.

  He shook his head and headed upstairs. I returned to tidying the kitchen, trusting in the kid I’d raised, satisfied he knew he could tell me whatever was on his mind, and confident that he would do so in his own good time.

  It’s not that I didn’t know that something was wrong, but I had no idea it was a life-and-death situation. I was just worried Dylan was unhappy.

  There isn’t a day since the tragedy that I haven’t relived that interaction, that I don’t see myself following him up the stairs. A faraway look—I have heard suicidologist Thomas Joiner refer to it as “the thousand-yard stare”—is a warning sign for imminent suicide, and one often missed. Hundreds of times I’ve imagined myself demanding, cajoling, wheedling, bribing Dylan: Tell me what’s going on with you. Tell me what it feels like. Tell me what you need. Tell me how I can help. I’ve even imagined barricading myself in his room, refusing to leave until he tells me what he’s thinking. Each one of these fantasies ends with me taking him into my arms, knowing exactly what to say and how to get him the help he needs.

  • • •

  For my fiftieth birthday, I arranged to meet a friend for a drink after work. I told Tom not to worry if I was late; I suspected my friend might be planning a get-together. Indeed, I found a dozen close friends and coworkers at the restaurant—plus Tom, who’d organized the party. The fact tha
t he’d done such a kind thing warmed me.

  As I settled in for a conversation with my friends, Tom leaned over and warned me not to fill up on snacks. “We’re going out for dinner,” he whispered.

  Dylan and Byron were waiting for us at home, dressed up and ready to go. Byron presented me with a houseplant, and Dylan gave me a CD. Ruth and Don met us at the restaurant—yet another surprise. I was as happy that night as I can remember being, completely oblivious to the terrible disaster looming on the horizon.

  Don took pictures as we were leaving the restaurant. Dylan had been quiet all evening, visibly self-conscious and uncomfortable as he always was in social situations, but polite—and, as usual, happy to have a good meal. In the pictures, which I saw for the first time only after his death, he looks annoyed.

  Early the next morning, the three of us set off for Arizona. Although I’d slept barely a few hours, I was looking forward to spending time with Tom and Dylan. Tom relinquished the wheel to Dylan on the second day; we hoped to use the trip to help improve his highway skills. The first few hours were a trial. With his crooked glasses balanced on his nose, and his baseball cap turned backwards, Dylan tilted the seat back in a semi-reclining position and drove with only the index finger of his left hand touching the wheel. I sat in the backseat, clutching the door handle and praying silently until I finally asked him to slow down. Tom tried to keep both of us calm, though I noticed he did not need his usual reminder to fasten his seat belt.

  Little by little, Dylan’s driving improved and he ended up driving for several hours. Eventually I was able to fall asleep, and when I woke up, Dylan was driving like a pro. He seemed pleased when I complimented him, though he was probably just happy I’d stopped nagging. He listened to techno CDs through earphones until Tom asked if he’d play something for us. Tom preferred jazz and I usually chose classical, so we were both surprised by how much we liked what he played. All of us were excited to see Colorado’s mountains give way to the desert vegetation. When Tom took the wheel, Dylan grabbed the camera so he could take pictures out of the car window, and said again how much he was looking forward to going to school in the desert.

  Our tour was successful, and by the end Dylan had made up his mind: he wanted to go to the University of Arizona. We could skip the other school on our itinerary and head for home. We stopped for gas and asked Dylan to pose next to a saguaro more than three times his height. He looks remote and unkempt in the photo, developed after his death, standing with his arms uncomfortably out from his sides; to me, now, they look poised over invisible guns. At our hotel, Dylan watched a movie in his room while Tom and I made an early night of it.

  The next morning, as we were all getting ready to join civilization at the continental breakfast, Dylan pulled his old baseball cap, one of his favorite possessions, over his long hair. We’d made the cap together: he’d carefully snipped the “B” (for Boston Red Sox) off another hat grown too shabby to wear, and I’d sewn the letter to the back of a new hat, so he could wear it backwards and still display the logo. It turned out remarkably well, and he never wanted to be without it.

  Tom stepped in with his 1950s dress code standards and asked Dylan not to wear the hat to the hotel’s breakfast buffet. Dylan argued that we were on vacation, and it couldn’t possibly make a difference to anyone if he wore the hat. I shot Tom a “don’t sweat the small stuff” look, but didn’t want to sabotage his authority, so I gathered up a suitcase.

  “I’ll go down to the car and wait while you two work this out.”

  I’d forgotten the car key, though, so I leaned against the hood in the cold morning air, remembering how Tom would insist the boys tuck in their shirts and polish their shoes for church while the minister’s own kids wore T-shirts and jeans. I was angry at him for harping on the hat. I guess I still am.

  Eventually, Dylan came down to the car alone, his head bare. I wanted to say I agreed with him, and that it was okay with me if he wore the hat, but I did not. I only said, “I’m sorry the morning started out like this. I see you decided not to wear the hat.” Dylan sounded tired but determined to brush it off. “It’s not worth fighting about; it’s just not a big deal.”

  I was frankly surprised. I’d expected a little more sputtering and complaining from a seventeen-year-old. “Wow, Dyl. I’m impressed,” I said, mistaking his willingness to withdraw from the conflict for maturity. I praised him for controlling his anger but I wish now he had stomped and screamed, giving me a glimpse of the rage burning inside him. Now I wonder if he had stopped caring about anything at all.

  There was one more odd incident on our way home, which at the time Tom and I chalked up to Dylan’s desire to get back to his friends. The three of us stopped at a packed McDonald’s in Pueblo for a quick bite. A large group of teenagers had taken over a couple of tables against the wall. We’d just unwrapped our sandwiches when Dylan leaned forward, hardly moving his lips, and said urgently, “We have to go. Those kids are laughing at me.” I looked over. The teenagers were hooting and hollering and having a great time, and none of them was paying the slightest bit of attention to us.

  “Relax, Dyl. Nobody’s looking at you,” I said. Besides, if a person didn’t want to be noticed, why wear a floor-length leather coat? But Dylan grew more insistent, casting quick, paranoid glances over his shoulder at the oblivious kids. He was so uncomfortable that we bolted our burgers and hustled out of there; the teenagers didn’t even look up at us as we left. The rest of the ride home was uneventful.

  After our trip, Dylan jumped right back into his busy social life. Nate spent the night. One evening, after studying calculus with Robyn, Dylan asked if I would help pay for prom expenses. I was floored he was interested in going to the prom at all; so, I found out later, were his friends. He seemed amused himself.

  The following night, March 30, I attended a pre-graduation meeting for parents of seniors and ran into Judy Brown. Since our phone conversation about the snowball more than a year earlier, we’d seen each other only briefly, mostly after school productions, and so we were eager to catch up. Before long, our conversation veered off into our mutual interest in art—my figure drawing sessions, and some classes she’d taken. We looked at some drawings I had stashed in my car before saying good-bye. Neither one of us mentioned Eric.

  • • •

  One of the most painful questions people ask suicide loss survivors is whether or not we ever hugged our kids. The question hurts, not only for the obvious reasons (only thousands of times; what kind of mother doesn’t hug her kid?) but, in my case, because of a specific incident—indeed, a specific hug—that took place in the last two weeks of Dylan’s life.

  One afternoon we passed each other in the hallway at the foot of the stairs. Spontaneously, I threw my arms around him.

  “I love you so much,” I told him. “You are such a wonderful person, and Dad and I are so proud of you.” He rested his left hand gently on my back, barely touching me. With the jokingly haughty air we sometimes used to thank each other for elaborate and ridiculous compliments, he thanked me. But I didn’t want him to make a joke of this, which I meant with all my heart, and so I took his thin jawbone in both of my hands and looked directly into his eyes.

  “No kidding around, Dylan: I mean it. I love you so much. You are a wonderful person, and Dad and I are proud of you.”

  He looked down, embarrassed, and whispered his thanks.

  For years, I replayed this scene in my mind. Afraid that it would become distorted through repetition, I wrote it down. I can see it like a movie now, two figures in the hallway, his hand on the small of my back, me reaching up to hold his face. The memory of that hug is one of the most painful I hold—and the knowledge that, to this day, I have no idea what on earth Dylan could possibly have been thinking.

  • • •

  On April 4, I decided to whip up a belated, last-minute dinner in honor of the combined Easter and Passover holidays, figuring I’d scrunch the two and make it a double celebrati
on, as my family had often done when I was a child.

  When I mentioned it to Dylan, he laughed in an irritated way, as if at some private joke, and told me he didn’t want to attend. He gave in when I asked him to reconsider. I spent a happy day in the kitchen cooking, and a neighbor joined us for the meal. We never did get all the way through the service, but we had a good time.

  The family celebrated Tom’s birthday in early April by going out for fondue. Byron and Dylan took one car, and Tom and I rode in another, giving the boys some time to bond. It was the last time Byron was alone with his brother, and he would later tearfully recall how normal Dylan had acted.

  At dinner, Byron did most of the talking. Dylan was so quiet, I fretted he wasn’t getting enough attention—an old worry, familiar to many parents, that one child will feel less loved or validated than the other one. Dylan did get a few jokes in, one so funny I laughed about it all evening. Later, when I couldn’t remember what the joke was (neither Tom nor Byron could remember, either), I was crushed that I hadn’t paid more attention.

  After dinner, the four of us gathered back at the house for homemade cake and gifts. I’d found Tom a small concrete bench, a place to rest his sore joints while tending to his favorite flowers, and my two sons effortlessly carried it into the garden from the trunk of my car. Byron gave him a CD, and Dylan gave him a box of little cigars. For many years, he smoked one on Dylan’s birthday in remembrance.