I absolutely love this time of year -- with one exception. Regardless of where I am or what I am doing, I always remember what happened in the couple of days ending November and, of course, December 1. On December 1, 1997, a freshman at Heath High School fired shots into a prayer group taking place in the lobby right before school began for the day. He killed three students and injured five others. I don't like to get into the gory details or the conspiracy theories, including the aftermath, but there are more mostly-accurate details here.
I was in 8th grade at the time. I had walked through the lobby less than 15 minutes before to get to the middle school behind the high school. All I remember is that the school was put on lock down with no explanation and we began to hear sirens. Lots of sirens. At that point I was sitting in algebra class and everyone had stopped pretending to focus. We figured out what happened from the television in the classroom before anyone on our floor knew what was going on 40 yards away in the high school lobby. I remember everything about that day: what I was wearing, riding the bus home, calling my mom to assure her that I wasn't hurt, talking to my preacher on the phone for at least an hour and sitting with my parents crying as we all struggled to figure out what exactly had happened. We held a memorial service at my church that evening. The father of the shooter, a local attorney, practiced in the same firm as a member of our church. He and his wife and their daughter showed up at the service. I remember that it was certainly an exercise in forgiveness and compassion and, for some, restraint, to sit in the same church as the shooter's family. In that same church in March of that year, the shooter himself and two of the victims attended a lock-in. It was a strange collision of circumstances that was, at the time innocuous. Later, it was just too much of a coincidence to fathom, in light of the circumstances.
I remember the hardest part as a young teen was understanding. My seemingly odd behavior during that time was what I now know to be coping. My exceedingly supportive parents knew that all along. I recorded the news every evening, recorded every tribute, the funeral and the news coverage after it was all said and done. I collected stacks of newspapers. I don't recall whether I watched the tapes or looked at the newspapers all that often. I just recall needing something to hold onto so that I could try to understand exactly what had happened. I think that at some point I just gave up on trying to understand and began praying a lot.
I watched my friends, later my boyfriend, at the time, whose brother had been wounded and all of their friends who were actually there on that day as they attempted to cope as well. The grieving process went on for years. It was always the elephant in the room. It also became a point of contention for many who felt as if their grief was superior to those who were not close enough to the tragedy. Others didn't care about that and, instead, wanted to pretend as if it didn't happen at all. Still others, it seemed, wanted to wallow in it and find ways in which to call themselves heroes, clinging to their blood spattered backpacks and t-shirts, once evidence. Some became hyper-religious. Some became atheists or agnostic. Some even pretended to be heroes until they were caught.
However, in some ways, it brought out the best in people. Students and teachers were cognizant of one another as human beings, which, in turn, forced both to grow up a little. As for me, I remember coming out of the haze and carrying one thing with me: never forget to tell your family how much you love them. Every. Day. I spent a lot of time with my parents and sister in while I was in high school for that reason. There are so many other things that I remember about that day, but the lessons I learned from the aftermath are probably some of the most important ones I've ever learned.
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