April 7, 1982 is a day that has never left my memory. It was a cloudy spring day, a bit cool. I was in typing class, when several students burst into the classroom, yelling that a student, someone I considered a friend, had been shot. Our typing room overlooked the bike racks where all this reportedly happened, but our teacher, Mrs. Henderson, ordered us away from the window and then she pulled the shade. We began our lesson, wondering what had happened.
I had to leave for an orthodontics appointment that day, and when I went to sign out through the office as I was supposed to do, I saw another student, John, in the office crying and the secretaries were bent over him. When they noticed me, they yelled at me to get out. I quickly left the building and realized police and paramedics were next to the school. Soon, I heard the whoomp, whoomp of the Flight for Life helicopter as it made an emergency landing on Columbine Drive. At that moment, my mom showed up, and we talked about what was going on.
My friend, Scott, was shot and killed on school grounds by a boy named Jason. There was no reason for his death. He died because a kid had a gun. Who knows what Scott would have accomplished had he lived. I cannot imagine the pain his parents and brothers endured after his death. I wanted to go to his funeral but had a panic attack that day and had to stay home. It was the first of my experiences with shootings.
April 20, 1999 is another day I will never forget. I will never forget the sight of an administrator standing out front of my school, hurrying kids into the building from lunch. I will never forget how the day went from sunny to cloudy and the clouds lingered for days, it seemed, after the shootings at Columbine. I will not forget being on lockdown until nearly 3:00 or being threatened by a student who wanted to leave to head to Columbine. I will never forget the thwack thwack the Huey helicopters made as they flew over my school. To this day, the sound of those helicopters causes me a mild panic attack. Columbine was my alma mater; my high school. I had been in it a couple of months earlier and could picture the library and the cafeteria.
Last year, I went back to Columbine for an inservice, the first time I had been there since the shootings. I had a panic attack and couldn't stop crying the entire time I was there. In fact, anytime we are presented with Columbine footage or speakers at my school, I have panic attacks and have to leave.
I remember standing in my classroom the day Platte Canyon happened, shocked something so horrific could happen again and so close to home. September, 2006. I had to reassure my students that we were safe at my school, but I wondered how safe we really were. The Platte Canyon hostage situation and ultimately the shootings haunt me today, especially because we have had strangers wandering around our school, acting suspiciously. Strangers I've had to confront. It's frightening.
The day a gunman began shooting outside Deer Creek Middle School, in February of 2010, I had a panic attack. A counselor came to my classroom to check on me and make sure I could be in front of kids. I could not believe it...again! Again someone was committing a horrific act of violence at a school I once attended and one so close to where I work.
After hearing about the shootings at the Aurora theater, the oppressive feeling that nothing is sacred comes back to me. Shootings at schools, shootings in churches, restaurants, college classrooms, and now theaters. I simply want to fold my husband and son up, keeping us locked in our house for safety. Some claim that more guns, concealed with permit guns, is the answer. Others claim that banning guns from society is the answer.
I've come to the conclusion that guns really aren't the problem; people are the problem. I'm not in favor of guns, but I don't see how banning them works. I think we should spend our time and money providing better mental health care. Obviously, the shooters at Deer Creek, Columbine, Platte Canyon, and now Aurora were mentally ill. How do they slip through the cracks? Are we, as a society, doing enough to help those who turn to violence and suicide as their way of coping with whatever is going on in their heads?
All I know is this, my fear is real; shootings have happened around me for a number of years. I fear a shooting. But I can't live my life in fear, and I cannot allow my son to do so either. So I will continue to go to work, continue to visit restaurants, and continue to attend movies. I will not succumb to my fear.
