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

by Klebold, Sue; Solomon, Andrew (INT)

  Four days before the tragedy, I saw the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit with a friend at the Denver Art Museum, while Tom and Dylan studied a map of the University of Arizona to find the dorm closest to the center of campus and tried to figure out which rooms were the largest. After they were through, Dylan picked up his tuxedo. He hung the bag from his closet door to keep the contents from wrinkling. We would see it, later, in the background of one of the Basement Tapes.

  Tom and I both noticed Dylan was a little agitated that week. I was sure he was nervous about the prom. Robyn was flying back to Denver on Saturday afternoon after an out-of-state church function, and her flight time would cut it close. Dylan had to choose flowers and work out the logistics of dinner and transportation; the tasks were, to say the least, out of his area of expertise.

  That Friday, Dylan asked if Eric could sleep over. We agreed. The guest room hadn’t been cleaned since Nate had spent the night a couple of weeks earlier, and our sick cat Rocky had thrown up in there, so Tom and I wrestled a vacuum cleaner up the stairs and asked Dylan to clean the room and bathroom before his friend arrived.

  Dylan was irritated we were making such a big deal about cleaning; he told us Eric didn’t care if the room was clean or not. I overrode his protests. “Eric may not care, but we do. If you clean your room, Dad will do the bathroom and I’ll do the guest room. It’ll go fast if we all help.” A few minutes later, Dylan left the house, saying he had a quick errand to run. I rolled my eyes, believing he was procrastinating; more likely, he was removing something he did not want us to see. After Dylan returned, we poked our heads into his room intermittently to check his progress. Neither one of us saw anything unusual.

  I’d already gone to bed when Eric arrived about 10:00 p.m. He had brought a large duffel bag, so heavy he could hardly lift it, and he was dragging it over the threshold when Tom said hello. Dylan and his friends were always hauling computer parts and video equipment over to one another’s houses, so Tom didn’t think twice about the bag. He told the boys what snacks were available, said good night, and came to bed.

  We slept without interruption, and when I came down to make breakfast, Eric had already gone. After all the fuss about cleaning the guest room, the bed had not been slept in at all.

  • • •

  We all focused on Dylan to get him ready for the prom. It was so cute. A. came over and we took pictures. Robyn & he left at about 6, and he has a big night ahead.

  —Journal entry, April 1999

  On Saturday, April 17, Tom and I remained on standby at home to help Dylan get ready for the prom.

  Dylan woke much calmer than the day before; he seemed to be going out of his way to convince me he wasn’t nervous. When I asked if he was concerned Robyn wouldn’t make it from the airport in time, he shrugged and said, “It’s no big deal. If we make it, we make it. If we don’t, we don’t. I’m not worried about it.”

  Late afternoon, his hair still wet from his shower, Dylan hauled his tuxedo into our bedroom, where we had a full-length mirror to work with. New to formal wear, he needed Tom’s help to understand what all the tuxedo pieces were. Self-conscious in black socks, plaid boxer shorts, and a gleaming white shirt with a stiff, pleated front, he seemed to tower over his father, though there was only a two-inch difference between them.

  He stood patiently while Tom awkwardly twisted tiny pieces of metal and plastic through the many buttonholes. The bow tie stumped Tom, and Dylan wrestled it away to try it himself; together, the two consummate problem-solvers figured it out. I sat on the bed to keep them company and told Dylan he looked like Lee Marvin getting outfitted in Western finery in Cat Ballou, one of our family’s favorites. Both he and Tom laughed.

  I had the camera, and Dylan tolerated a few shots before becoming self-conscious and annoyed as usual. I tried to catch one of his reflection in the mirror without him noticing, but he grabbed a towel and flicked it to block the shot. I developed the roll a few months after his death, using an assumed name so the press wouldn’t get ahold of the pictures. In that photo, only a fragment of his face is visible behind the towel—a mischievous grin under tired eyes.

  We’d spent that year begging Dylan to get a haircut, to no avail, but I convinced him to tie his hair back into a ponytail with one of my own elastics for the prom. He put his prescription glasses in his pocket and donned a pair of small-framed sunglasses. We thought he looked very handsome.

  Alison, our renter, came over and offered to take a picture of the three of us. In the picture, Dylan is clowning around, hamming it up like a professional model, Zoolander-style. The sharp lines of his formal wear stand in stark contrast to the faded flannel shirts and worn blue jeans Tom and I are wearing. He kept his sunglasses on as he posed with us; he wore dark glasses often during the last weeks of his life. I believe now he was hiding behind them.

  Tom had remembered to charge the batteries on our video camera, and he filmed Dylan briefly before Robyn arrived. The conversation between them is stilted; clearly, neither of them is comfortable on camera. But we have looked back on this pre-prom video many times, and shown it to others. It is absolutely stunning how normal Dylan seems.

  He and Tom talk lazily about baseball; Dylan mimes his hero, Randy Johnson, pitching in an ill-fitting tuxedo. Tom makes some comment about growing up, and Dylan remarks he’ll never have kids. Tom says he may change his mind, and Dylan says, “I know. I know. Someday I’ll look back at this and say, ‘What was I thinking?!!’ ” It is breathtakingly prophetic. When Tom persists in filming over Dylan’s protests, Dylan pinches small handfuls of snow from a nearby bush, lobbing the miniature snowballs playfully at Tom until the camera stops running. The fondness between them is palpable. It breaks my heart.

  Robyn arrived in good time, looking lovely in a deep blue-purple dress. Tom taped Dylan presenting her with her corsage, and smiling down at her as she struggled to pin a rose to his lapel. I made paparazzi jokes and asked them to move so I could get a picture without parked cars in the background. Since Dylan had assured us he and Robyn were just friends, I was a little surprised—and frankly tickled—to see him put his arm around her.

  In the last few frames on the tape Tom shot, the two of them smile into the camera. Then, self-consciously but sweetly, they both begin to laugh.

  • • •

  When I heard Dylan’s car arrive home from the prom after 4 a.m., I roused myself to talk with him. Though I was tired, I wanted to reach out.

  We met at the foot of the stairs. He looked exhausted but happy, a kid who’d had a big night. As usual, he was reluctant to volunteer information, so I peppered him with questions about what he’d eaten and whom he’d hung out with. I was excited to find out he’d danced. He thanked me for paying for tickets and clothes, and I was pleasantly surprised by his effusiveness when he told me he’d had the best night of his life.

  I had kissed him good night and turned to go back to bed when he stopped me. “I want to show you something.” He pulled a metal flask from his pocket. Someone with a little skill and a lot of solder had fixed a large crack at the top with a messy patch.

  “What is this?” I demanded. “Where did you get this thing?”

  He said he’d found it. When I asked what it contained, Dylan said it held peppermint schnapps, and that he’d rather not say where he’d gotten the alcohol. I was about to launch into my well-worn concerns about drinking when Dylan held up a hand, silencing me.

  “I want you to know you can trust me and you can trust Robyn. I had filled this so we could drink it tonight. I want you to see only a little tiny bit is missing.” He handed me the flask, and insisted I examine it closely, as if he were going to do a magic trick with it. “We had a little bit to drink at the beginning of the evening but no more after that. See? It’s close to the top.” I acknowledged the flask was nearly full.

  “I just wanted you to know you can trust me,” he said again. Still a little shaken, I thanked him for sharing the information with me before addin
g, “I do trust you.” Then I headed off to bed, reassured. I’d never expected him to get through high school without experimenting with alcohol, after all. At least he’d told me about it.

  I’ve given a lot of thought to that private moment between mother and son in the stillness of the night. In retrospect, I sometimes think that engaging me in that conversation about the flask was among the cruelest tricks Dylan ever played on me. Was he consciously manipulating me into trusting him, even as he was planning a massacre? Was he mocking me? If he was preparing to die within a few days, why was it necessary to establish my trust in him? Did he need reassurance, or was he trying to prevent me from searching his room?

  I once shared these thoughts with a psychologist who then asked me, “How do you know he wasn’t in earnest? Maybe he did want to earn your approval, and it had nothing to do with what was to follow.” It’s one of the many things I will never know.

  • • •

  Sunday after the prom, Dylan slept late, then left for Eric’s in the afternoon. He looked terribly tired, which was only to be expected after the sleepover on Friday night and a late night at the prom. I made a large kettle of homemade vegetable soup with posole, but Byron had plans and Dylan didn’t get home until later, so Tom and I ate alone. April 19 was a Monday, and Dylan let me know he wouldn’t be home for dinner. He’d made plans to go to a steakhouse with Eric, the same restaurant where we had eaten with Eric’s family two months earlier.

  “What’s the occasion?” I asked. (When Dylan ate with friends, they usually went for fast food.) He told me Eric had a couple of coupons. They didn’t need a reason, as far as I was concerned. Three weeks from graduation, they were about to move on to the next phase of their lives and I applauded their impulse to celebrate. I told Dylan to have a good time.

  He got home about 8:30, and I greeted him at the door. “How was it?” “Good,” he said, as he removed his muddy shoes. Always trying to pull a little more information, I asked, “What did you have for dinner?” He looked up from his shoes, tilting his head to one side so he could give me a “Come on, Mom” look; they’d gone to a steakhouse. “Uh, steak?” he said. We both laughed.

  Tom was reading in the living room, and I asked Dylan if he had time to sit down with us for a minute, but he said he had a lot of work to do, adding he’d probably have to be in his room all evening to get everything done. He seemed particularly evasive and eager to get upstairs; I assumed he had some last-minute, end-of-year homework to finish up. The phone rang a few times; I let Dylan get it. I do not remember kissing him, or going to his room to say good night. I am still trying to forgive myself for not remembering if I did or not.

  The next morning, I got up in the dark to get ready for work. Before I had the chance to call him for bowling, Dylan bounded down the stairs past our bedroom. I opened the door, trying to catch him before he left. The house was dark.

  I heard the front door open. “Dyl?” I called into the darkness.

  “Bye,” was all he said.

  CHAPTER 15

  Collateral Damage

  I truly see no reason to continue living. I have a mammogram on Wednesday. I’m even fantasizing about having a fatal disease so I could say, “How long do I have to stick around before I can get out of here?” I make no contributions to life and derive no pleasure from it. Fantasize about saving a child from disaster and dying in the process, or offering my life to terrorists to save a planeload of people.

  —Journal entry, January 2001

  On Valentine’s Day of 2001, almost two years after Dylan’s participation in the massacre at Columbine High School, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

  In a sense, I wasn’t surprised. You know those Halloween costumes made to look like the handle of an ax is protruding from your chest? That was what I felt like all the time. The heart is where you hold and nurture a child, and a virtual bomb had been set off in mine. My son was dead, and fourteen other people because of him. It made sense there would be some collateral damage.

  Fear of death had been a constant companion of mine since childhood, and an intensified version of it set in quickly after my diagnosis, adding to already sky-high levels of anxiety. A few days afterward, Tom took me out to our favorite neighborhood Chinese restaurant. At the end of the meal, when I broke open my fortune cookie, there was nothing inside.

  My oncologist approached me thoughtfully. Because they’d caught the cancer early, and because the tumor was small, she felt I might be able to do radiation treatment and avoid chemotherapy. Due to persistent stomach problems related to grief and anxiety in the wake of the tragedy, I had already lost about twenty-five pounds—weight I could not afford to lose. Grief and guilt had dramatically depleted my physical and emotional reservoirs. The treatment path was my choice, but the truth sat unspoken between us. I was so run-down and haggard I did not look like someone who would survive a brutal round of chemotherapy. I elected not to do it.

  There’s a Susan G. Komen cancer outreach program in our community. After your diagnosis, a breast cancer survivor comes to your house to give you information and encouragement. (The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention has a similar visitation program for suicide loss survivors, called the Survivor Outreach Program. I’m on the board of our local chapter, currently working to bring that program to Colorado.) When I saw the breast cancer support group information my volunteer had brought, I could only shake my head. I needed a support group, that was true—but not for cancer.

  Radiation causes exhaustion and physical discomfort, but I was already there. With the help of family and friends and a terrific medical team, I got through my treatment. After my final radiation session, the staff of the clinic presented me with a card they’d signed. It’s likely this is a kindness they perform for every patient, but the gesture devastated me, and I fled to the safety of my car to cry.

  I didn’t know why I was crying. Maybe because it had felt so good to be taken care of. Or because the end of my treatment meant I’d have to go back, full-time, to grieving for Dylan and struggling to understand what he’d done.

  It’s funny I don’t have more to say about surviving cancer; I certainly didn’t feel detached or blasé about it when it was happening. It was treated, and I moved on with gratitude. But after I recovered, I realized I’d been wrong in the journal entry that begins this chapter: I did not want to die.

  Tom would often say he wished Dylan had killed us too, or that we’d never been born at all. I prayed I’d pass away in my sleep, a quiet deliverance from the agony of waking up and realizing it hadn’t all been a terrible nightmare. Sitting in traffic, I’d fantasize about being given the opportunity to trade my life for the people who had died at the school, or being presented with the chance to sacrifice myself to save a large group. Dying would be a relief, I thought, and dying to save others would give my miserable life purpose.

  Surviving breast cancer helped me to see (as perhaps we all should) that my life was a gift. My work, going forward, would be to find a way to honor that gift.

  CHAPTER 16

  A New Awareness

  It’s widely acknowledged among those who grieve that the second year is often worse than the first. The first year, you’re trying to adjust to the newness of the suffering, and to get through the days. It’s during the second year that you realize you’ve lost sight of the shoreline. There’s nothing but emptiness ahead and behind, a vast loneliness stretching out as far as you can see. This, you realize, is permanent. There will be no turning back.

  My grief was amplified by the agony of knowing that so many families were going through something similar because of my son. The image of Dylan, so hate- and rage-filled on the tapes, battled with my own memories of the playful kid I’d loved so much. Some days, it felt like a war was taking place inside of me.

  A few things helped. I couldn’t yet make any art, but as I lay in bed I would sometimes imagine I was drawing. Specifically, I imagined I was drawing trees.

  I hav
e always loved trees. I’m inspired by their fortitude and character—their knots and scars and burls, the sites of so many injuries and so much life—and by their generosity, the way they uncomplainingly provide shade and oxygen and food and shelter and fuel. Trees are both deeply grounded and aspirational; they never stop reaching. They feel like friends, and the idea of drawing them became a safe and comforting place for me to park my mind. But I could not yet put pencil to paper.

  Indeed, I would not achieve the integration I sought until I found two nutrients essential to so many survivors. First, I found community and then I found a way to contribute.

  • • •

  Met C. Her son D. killed himself at 12 after a bad day at school. It was over a year and a half ago and she still cries all the time. I cried hard all the way home and realized how much I want to be in a support group. Will lock cats out tonight so I can sleep.

  —Journal entry, July 1999

  Less than three months after the shootings, my supervisor sent me to a large regional conference for rehabilitation professionals. I debated about whether to go; while I had come to feel a little more comfortable with my coworkers, I wasn’t sure I was ready to be out in the wider world. Ultimately I asked the organizers to hold my nametag behind the registration table until I asked them for it. By then, such precautions had become a way of life.

  When I went to claim my badge, one of the two women behind the table looked up. “Sue Klebold?” she asked. I tensed, as I would for years. But the lovely dark-haired woman reached across the table for my hand. “I’m Celia. I want you to know many people understand what you’re going through right now.” Her voice was warm, but she did not smile. When she continued, I understood why. “My twelve-year-old son died by suicide last year,” she said.

  I had received an enormous amount of sympathy, and many letters of commiseration. Our friends and my colleagues had been wonderful but I always felt the distance between their experiences and my own. Celia’s hand on mine, and those words—“many people understand what you’re going through”—tethered me back to the world, providing a deep and automatic consolation, the way a distraught toddler’s tears stop as soon as he’s swept up into his mother’s arms. I asked Celia if she might have some time to sit and talk, and she told me she’d be relieved from the registration desk in half an hour.