Moving On...

In Yahoo headlines today: "Columbine victims still healing seven years on".

"As a sophomore at Columbine High School seven years ago, Marjorie Lindholm was a cheerleader with a 3-plus grade-point average who wanted to become a doctor.

Her life changed dramatically when the killing spree began on April 20, 1999. Lindholm found herself locked in a classroom with other students and a teacher, Dave Sanders. She was there for four hours as Sanders and 12 classmates were gunned down by students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who shot and killed themselves. (yeah, lucky break that. Wusses. I saw "Constantine", y'know. I know what happens to people when they kill themselves)

Now 24, Lindholm believes she has only recently begun to heal. Writing a book, "A Columbine Survivor's Story," with her mother has helped, she said.

Many survivors have moved on after the deadliest school shooting in the nation's history. But for others marking the massacre's seven-year anniversary Thursday, it has been more difficult.

Sean Graves was shot four times and paralyzed from the waist down.

The father of Mark Taylor, who was hit by more than a dozen bullets, left his family in 2001 after 34 years of marriage. (Yet another wuss. You weren't the only one who lost a son, ya jerk!)

Anne Marie Hochhalter's mother killed herself 18 months after the massacre, which left her daughter paralyzed from the waist down. (did I miss something here? Her daughter's paralyzed. Since when does paralyzation mean dead?

Brooks Brown, a friend of the two killers, was briefly named a suspect by authorities, outraging family members who had reportedly tried to warn sheriff's deputies that Harris had threatened Brooks and was building bombs. Brown said he is now doing well, running a small video
production company.

And there are others.

Columbine Principal Frank DeAngelis went through a divorce after throwing himself into his work, but is now engaged to his high school sweetheart...."

This incident happened 10 years after I graduated from my own high school. I remember this being all over the news and thinking, because of this incident, high schools are now being equipped like airports: metal detectors and bag searches. Teens have to wear lanyards around their necks with photo id's and swipe them in a machine just to get inside. How crazy is that? Because of this incident, more teens are being homeschooled. Can you blame them? I mean, really. The biggest thing that ever happened at my high school was the huge desert party shakedown in which our Class President decided to go all Superstar on some cop by demanding, "Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am?" Why yes, a drunk and high sophomore out past curfew. But I digress.

Reading this article brought up old feelings, not the least of which was bone deep sympathy. For the victims. Was your life really that bad that the only thing you could think of was to kill? Was the whole school treating you like shit or some kids in particular? Did you even kill the ones that were picking on you or did that not matter? And how come the parents never knew? How come other people were seeing the signs and their own parents weren't?

"Do you know where your kids are?"
"No, why?"
"Well, they're down here at the school shooting off a couple rounds. I don't know if you can hear me what will all the yelling and screaming and gunfire going on here. Would you mind coming to pick them up? By the way, you might want to stop by the store and pick up some body bags."

The article doesn't mention the parents of the murderers. I'm interested in knowing if they've moved on..or took the easy way out like their children. Murderers. That's what those boys were. And how convenient it was for them to take care of their own sentencing right there because, well, we all know the courts would've done the same. Maybe. After making them suffer through however many life sentences. I'm enraged just thinking about it even though it never got that far. But we all know how the wheels of Justice works. They probably would've found a loophole like no priors or pleading insanity. A life sentence--one or several-- wouldn't have seemed...justified. Not for the kids that died or the ones that survived.

And our friends wonder why Steven and I don't want to bring kids into this world.