I am unapologetically tenderhearted where animals are concerned, but I can see now there was obviously more going on that day with Rocky than merely responsible pet ownership. There was so much suffering in Littleton for which I felt responsible, and nothing I could do about it. Caring for this one suffering animal was something I could do, a situation still salvageable.
Terrified of being recognized, I entered the clinic through a side door. When it came time to hand Rocky over to the vet, I found I couldn’t do it. Rocky was Dylan’s cat. He’d chosen him from a neighbor’s litter of kittens when he was in third grade. The big white cat had stretched out with us for all those family nights on the couch as we watched the Pink Panther movies together in the den. Letting go of Rocky felt like letting go of Dylan. I struggled to communicate to the doctors without sobbing and asked them to do what they could for him, and to keep him until I was able to come back. Finally, I allowed a vet to take the frightened cat from my arms.
As I made my way across the parking lot, heading for the sanctuary of Don and Ruth’s car, I heard someone running after me, calling my name. I turned to see one of the clinic’s staff members heading toward me, and for a moment I wasn’t sure whether to walk toward her or run away. Gary had warned us repeatedly we would need to be careful for our safety: there were many people in Colorado and around the world who held us responsible for the shootings, and who would be happy to see us dead. The day before, a large delivery of hot food had arrived for us at his office—a gesture of sympathy and goodwill from a stranger, like the boxes of mail we were beginning to receive there. Gary wouldn’t allow us to eat a bite of the food for fear it was poisoned. Even years afterward, I would find myself on heightened alert whenever I had to give my full name to schedule a delivery, or to a teller at the bank. But that moment in the vet clinic’s parking lot was the first time I had ever recoiled in fear from an interaction with anyone in the place where we lived.
As it happened, I had nothing to worry about. The petite woman threw her arms around me. She told me she’d raised boys, and knew how unbelievably stupid they could be. It was a sentiment many, many mothers would share with me over the years. Though I towered over her, I let her hold me while I sobbed, soaking both of us with my tears. Later I realized I didn’t even know her name.
That woman was not the only person to show us generosity. Even before we left Don and Ruth’s, our longtime friends and neighbors closed ranks around us. The newspaper ran a photograph of our friends hanging a poster on the gate at the foot of our driveway:
Sue & Tom
We Love You
We’re Here for You
CALL US
The sight of those familiar, dear faces felt like a Radio Free Europe message transmitted across enemy lines. The memory of so many kindnesses, both large and small, humbles me to this day. Even as our friends and family showed their love and compassion for us, though, I felt sure they must also be wondering, What on earth did you people do to create such anger in a child? How could you not see what was happening?
I was asking those questions myself.
CHAPTER 4
A Resting Place
On Saturday, the twenty-fourth of April, we cremated our son.
Martha had offered to pick us up and drive us to the funeral home. Her experience with the bereaved was a gift, and she talked easily with us as she drove, but the paralyzing dread I felt intensified with every mile. Still, my social training prevailed and I tried to keep up my end of the conversation, even as I trembled violently and unsuccessfully fought back tears.
Both Martha and John were genuinely concerned about our security and privacy. They assured us there would be no posted sign or guest book available outside the room where Dylan lay, which had a single entrance and no windows. But even with the precautions, a member of the press had called the funeral home minutes before we arrived, so we entered the room furtively, casting glances over our shoulders like frightened prey.
No words are adequate to describe the pain of seeing Dylan’s body in that casket. The expression on Dylan’s face was unfamiliar, which Byron later confessed made it easier for him. That unfamiliar expression was perhaps the only thing that allowed us to get through that first, horrific, unreal moment. I smoothed Dylan’s hair and kissed his forehead, searching his face for clues and finding none. Tom and I had brought a number of Dylan’s childhood stuffed animals, and we placed them in the coffin so they rested against his cheeks and neck. Byron and Tom and I held one another’s hands, and together we held Dylan’s. We were finally by his side, a family again.
It was a chilly spring day, and I was overcome by a compulsive, almost biological need to make Dylan warm. I could not stop rubbing his ice-cold arms, exposed by the short-sleeved hospital gown he was wearing. I had to hold myself back from climbing into the casket so I could cover him with the warmth of my body.
Martha had recommended we each take some time alone with Dylan. Byron went first. As I waited in the main sitting room of the funeral home, I braced myself to be alone for the last time with what remained of my son, and I began to panic. A surge of animal protectiveness came over me. How could I allow Dylan to be destroyed, to be burned in a fire? I jumped out of my chair and started to pace, my mind racing. The other options—above-and below-ground burial—brought me no comfort. I tried to think how we could steal his body out of the mortuary and sneak him to safety. I can’t do this, I thought over and over, in an endless loop. There was a fireplace in the funeral home’s sitting room. It looked cheerful and inviting on that cold, snowy day, and I was drawn to it. Eventually, I was able to recover some calm by looking into the flames. Most of my panic turned to resignation, and then my grief resurfaced. How sad, I thought as I stared at the fire, that this is the way I must warm my son.
Since that day, I have experienced a number of recurring dreams about Dylan: dreams where I have a second chance to keep him safe, and fail; dreams where I lift his shirt to expose hidden wounds; dreams where I am simultaneously protecting him and protecting others from him. But there was a particular dream I only had once.
In it, I see Dylan’s bloody bones scattered across a forest floor. I collect them, one by one in my arms, afraid to put them down lest they be stolen or lost, but there is no safe place for them, so I am left helplessly clutching the sticky, blood-soaked bones to my chest.
There is a famous Buddhist tale about a woman called Kisa Gotami. The story begins when her baby dies. Unable to accept his passing, she demands medicine from the doctor, who knows full well that nothing will cure the child. He sends her to the Buddha, who tells her to go out and find four or five white mustard seeds from a household where no one has suffered. Kisa Gotami goes door to door, explaining she needs medicine for her baby. Many people offer to give her mustard seeds, but every time she asks the householder if they have lost someone close to them, the answer is always yes. Eventually, she goes back to the Buddha.
“Have you brought me the mustard seeds?” he asks.
“No,” she tells him. “But now I understand there is no one who has not lost someone they love, and I have laid my child to rest.”
It would take me years to find a resting place in my mind for Dylan—and even longer to uncover some of the answers that would permit me to find one for myself.
CHAPTER 5
Premonition
Dylan, wherever you are, I love and miss you. I’m struggling in the chaos you left behind. If there is any way to absolve you of these actions, please point the way. Help us find answers that will give us peace and help us live with this life we have been thrust into. Help us.
—Journal entry, April 1999