20/04/2019
I couldn't put down A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold, mother of Dylan, one of the two Columbine High School shooters. Today is the the 20th anniversary of this mass murder/suicide which cost the lives of one teacher and fourteen students (Dylan and his accomplice killed themselves as their final act).
Klebold’s memoir is a very human story of two parents who cared and actively participated in trying to raise a moral, happy child. She lays bare, however, her regrets: ”We had not done everything right. The research I have done has taught me better ways I might have interacted with Dylan. I wish I had listened more instead of lecturing. I wish I had sat in silence with him instead of filling the void with my own words and thoughts. I wish I had acknowledged his feelings instead of trying to talk him out of them, and that I’d never accepted his excuses — I’m tired, I have homework to do — when something felt off. I wish I’d sat in the dark with him, and repeated my concerns when he dismissed them. I wish I’d dropped everything else to focus on him , probed and prodded more, and that I had been present enough to see what I had not.” (pages 262-263)
My heart goes out to her and to all parents today.
The acclaimed New York Times bestseller by Sue Klebold, mother of one of the Columbine shooters, about living in the aftermath of Columbine.On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Over the course of minutes, they would kill twelve...
