A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy(93)

I worried a great deal about Dylan, even after his death. I was terrified his spirit would not be allowed to rest in peace because of his crimes. It was hard enough to know Dylan had suffered in life; I could not bear the idea that he continued to suffer in death, too.

As we were getting into bed, I had a debilitating panic attack.

It was not the first panic attack I had ever experienced. I had been a nervous, fearful child, prone to late-night anxiety, but that night’s attack was the worst I’d ever had. My thoughts spiraled out of control, and I trembled and cried as my mind pitched in terror.

Those panic attacks lasted through the time of the depositions, and beyond. They would strike without warning—at the hardware store, in a meeting at work, while I was driving in the car. Like a tsunami, a sudden, overpowering surge of blinding fear would rise up in front of me, then crash down. These floods of incapacitating terror were worse, by far, than the grief. Sometimes the attacks would run into each other, one after another, and I’d lose hours, even whole afternoons. I drank gallons of chamomile tea, tried every homeopathic remedy for anxiety I could find at the health food store. I was terrified I would not be able to get through my deposition, and tortured myself with imagining what would happen if I had an anxiety attack while on the stand.

Reading my journals from that period is revealing to me now. It is clear, on every single page, that I am hanging on by a thread.

? ? ?

I am not allowed to talk about what happened during the depositions, except to say it was terribly painful and (I believe) unsatisfying for everyone involved.

I can, however, share a regret. I wanted to apologize to the families in person at the depositions, but our lawyers didn’t agree. “This isn’t the time or place,” I was told. I wish I had fought harder to say those words. I believe their absence was deeply felt by everyone in the room, and continues to be, to this day. Saying I am profoundly sorry is one of the reasons I wanted to write this book.

Neuroscientists like to say behavior is the result of a complex interaction between nature and nurture. At some time in the future, we will likely be able to point to the specific combination of neurotransmitters that lead a person to commit acts of unspeakable violence. I will personally rejoice on the day neurobiologists map the precise mechanism in the brain responsible for empathy and for conscience. Needless to say, we’re not yet there. We do know, from researchers like Dr. Victoria Arango, that there are clear brain differences between people who die by suicide and people who do not. Dr. Kent Kiehl and others have demonstrated that there also appear to be some clear brain differences between people who commit homicide and people who do not.

I have spent a lot of time wondering whether Dylan had a biological predisposition toward violence—and if so, whether or not we were responsible. I did not consume alcohol while I was pregnant with Dylan. He was not abused in our home, physically, verbally, or emotionally, nor was he subjected to anyone else being abused. He was not raised in poverty, or exposed (to my knowledge) to toxins such as heavy metals, which have been connected to violent behavior. Neither of his parents abused alcohol or drugs. He was well nourished.

Even if Dylan did have a biological predisposition toward violence, biology isn’t destiny. What forces had aggravated this tendency in him? The governor of Colorado cited parenting as a causal factor in his first public appearance after the shootings. But Tom and I knew exactly what had happened in our home all those years we parented Dylan, and we were equally sure the answer wasn’t there.

This was what I wanted to say in the depositions—not because I had any thought of clearing our names, or setting the record straight, but because it was such a crucial opportunity to broaden our understanding of how tragedies like Columbine happen. Dylan did not learn violence in our home. He did not learn disconnection, or rage, or racism. He did not learn a callous indifference to human life. This I knew.

I wanted to say that Dylan had been loved. I loved him while I was holding his pudgy hand on our way to get frozen yogurt after kindergarten; while reading Dr. Seuss’s exuberant There’s a Wocket in My Pocket! to him for the thousandth time; while scrubbing the grass stains out of the knees of his pint-size Little League uniform so he could wear it to pitch the next day. I loved him while we were sharing a bowl of popcorn and watching Flight of the Phoenix together, a month before he died. I still loved him. I hated what he had done, but I still loved my son.

Morality, empathy, ethics—these weren’t one-time lessons, but embedded in everything we did with our kids. I’d taught the boys what I myself believe—that we should treat others as we wish to be treated. Dylan was expected to help our neighbors with their yard work without the expectation of payment because that’s what neighbors do, and to hold the door open for the person coming in behind him because that’s what gentlemen do.

I’m a teacher by constitution. Everything I knew and cared about and valued, I poured into my kids. A trip to the grocery store wasn’t merely a stopover to restock the fridge, but a way to show my boys how to select the freshest apple, an invitation to think about the hardworking farmers who had grown it, and to talk about the ways fruits and vegetables make a growing body healthy and strong. It was a chance for me to introduce the vocabulary words “carmine” and “vermilion.” I showed Dylan how to be gentle putting the fruit into the basket; we let an elderly lady with one or two items slip ahead of us in line; we made eye contact and said a polite “thank you” to the cashier. Nervous about inattentive drivers, I would take his hand when we went to tuck our shopping cart back into its spot so it couldn’t roll out and dent someone else’s car.