April 30, 1999

What happened at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado is quite beyond reasoning and way beyond reason. There's no singular answer, but everyone will ask why because our brain pans didn't evolve this far only to choose between paper or plastic. The public will cry for THE law to get guns away from kids, and politicians will posture, so we're in for a mess of proposals.

I wish there was a law capable of stopping gun tragedies. Unfortunately, we can't legislate against misplaced anger, mental illness, or even opportunity because there is always a way around the law for those who hold it in contempt, and they would be, well, criminals.

Something went terribly wrong with the kids who devised such a long-term plan, sustained the hatred for at least a year, and then went through with the murders and suicides. We will never know for certain what that something was, even if they identify directly precipitating factors.

The only chance we have at preventing violence lies in the first line of defense: those closest to children. If the parents of the Littleton killers failed to pursue specialized psychiatric help--not just taking any randomly assigned, court-appointed generalist-- they have major culpability. Would that have made a difference? It's uncertain, but parents are morally and legally obligated to pay attention to aberrant behavior and contraband and then take action against it.

As for the surviving students, the timing couldn't have been worse, especially for the graduating class. At the end of my senior year, everyone was sent home on the last day of school after being told that one of our classmate friends had killed himself the night before.

The week of our graduation ceremony was filled with the horrible ambiguity of exuberance over commencement mixed with attending and assisting in a funeral. It's impossible to separate the image of that handsome young man laid out in the crushed velvet tuxedo and Edwardian shirt, fashionable in 1971, from that of our graduating class floating around the football field in our pastel robes.

My thoughts are with the survivors of Littleton's tragedy as they struggle with the good and bad of life during a pivotal moment at a tender age. And may the victims who died rest in peace.

At the end of my senior year in high school, a classmate named Philip committed suicide the night before our last day of school. When we got to campus that next day, full of the exuberance that alone could carry such a moment at such a magical age, we were sent home after being told.

This was a neat kid I had known since third grade, whose entire family were friends of mine, and with whom my boyfriend Bim had been best friends as long as he could remember. We spent the next few days trying to help the family in little ways, which mostly entailed being present for moral support.

Bim was a pallbearer at Philip's funeral and interment at a lovely, rural cemetery on a perfect afternoon in June. He was buried in the crushed purple velvet tuxedo his mother had made for the senior prom, complete with a lilac-colored, Edwardian-style ruffled shirt that was the style then, in 1971. Philip was movie-star handsome, tall and tan, with shiny dark-brown hair.

How his parents and sisters lived through that hell is something only they could know. How that young man who had been so cherished arrived at such a place of despair is something only he could know. One thing is certain: gun laws don't stop suicides or homocides. May all the victims of all unfathomable tragedy rest in peace.

© 1999 Cynthia Hahn