I wasn’t going to post about this.
In the aftermath of the tragedy of what happened at Virginia Tech, we were being so inundated by the media overload that I didn’t want to add to it.
But even though the eighth anniversary of the Columbine shootings has passed, it’s still been on my mind. It’s one of those things that will forever be etched onto my memory. Sure, I was just barely old enough to remember the Challenger exploding, and I was definitely impacted by the Oklahoma City bombing, and I remember David Koresh.
But the two events that have truly shaken me to the core are September 11th — and Columbine.
I will always remember where I was on April 20, 1999. I was lying on a gurney in the emergency room at Methodist Hospital here in San Antonio. I had been driving four of my softball girls to our game at Saint Mary’s Hall (I was the asst. softball coach for 7th and 8th grade girls at a local private school) and we were badly rear-ended from behind. We were all taken to the hospital by ambulance. Anyway, as I was waiting to be discharged, the events of Columbine were unfolding on the TV in my little curtained-off area and I still to this day remember throwing up because I was so horrified and devastated and shocked.
The memories of Cassie Bernal and Rachel Scott and why, exactly, they were martyred, will remain with me forever. And yes, they were, in fact, martyred. A martyr is a person killed because of his or her beliefs, and both were shot in the head because they professed to be Christians. Cassie’s profession is more widely publicized, but Rachel was targeted for the same reason. The friend who was with her, injured but who survived, said later that the kid who shot her asked her if she believed in God. She said, “You know I do,” and he replied, “Go be with Him, then,” and shot her point-blank in the head.
I’d like to think I’d have the same courage, but I just don’t know.
