Sue Klebold: Author, Activist, Counselor, Mother of School Shooter
On April 20, 1999, Sue Klebold suffered the greatest tragedy of her life: the loss of her son in the Columbine High School shooting . What sets her apart from all of the other parents grieving on that day was the fact that the massacre was something that was created by that same son she lost; on that day, Dylan Klebold assisted in the murder of twelve students and one teacher, while injuring twenty-four others, and finally taking his own life. While she lost on that day, everyone else’s loss was created by her own. Did she know of her son’s plans? If she didn’t, were there obvious signs that she missed? Could the entire tragedy have been avoided through better parenting?
Klebold has been asking herself these same questions since that fatal day.
In the next few years after the shooting, Klebold almost lost herself within the horror-filled memories of the event. During those days, she reflects, “I was nearly insane with sorrow for the suffering my son had caused, and with grief for the child I had lost” (Klebold). She tried to keep out of the public eye as much as she could; while many of the community members had feelings towards her, rarely were they sorrow or compassion. If she ordered a coffee, the barista would recognize the infamous last name on her card. She kept her eyes away from pictures of survivors and ears out of the news; after all, most broadcasted fingers pointed towards the parents as the cause of the tragedy. A special poll conducted by TIME and CNN soon after the event told that 67% of teens from the ages of 13 to 17 feel that the parents are responsible for a shooting like Columbine (Pooley, et al). With this message constantly being fed to her, Klebold couldn’t help but wonder how her child, her life’s work, could ever cause so much grief for so many others. Anytime she would venture outside the walls of her house, she couldn’t help but wonder in horror how her son’s actions affected their lives (Klebold). “His mom is rippin’ herself up, trying to find out why,” commented Randy Brown, the father of a friend of Dylan (Pooley, et al). She would regularly descend into spells of terror and paranoia, never being able to escape the horrid act committed by the boy she raised in her house.
Only when Klebold started to look into Dylan’s death did she begin to find what she was looking for (Klebold). Through reading a secret journal of Dylan’s that she previously did not know existed, it was clear that Dylan was suffering from severe depression. In order to better understand his feelings in those last bits of his life, she made made learning about suicide her main focus. Raising her son, she was sure to teach him how to protect himself against external dangers, such as lightning, drinking and drug addiction, reckless driving, and more. However, she did not think to warn him from what would end up being his greatest danger — himself (Klebold). Having said that, one question still remains: how did his suicidal tendencies lead to a planned mass murder? That is one that Klebold admits she’ll never know.
In 2009, Klebold broke her silence —exactly ten years after the shooting. In her piece for Oprah’s O Magazine, she finally opens up to everything she feels and experiences. She explains the love she has for her son, but also the confusion and disconnect she experiences between the boy she knew and raised, and the “monster” that committed such an unimaginable crime (Klebold). She designs her words in a way not as to draw in pity for her own experience, but instead to raise awareness for sadness in every parent’s child of their own. It is her wish that a “someone will see what [she] missed” (Klebold).
In the years between 2009 and today, Klebold has presented her story in interviews, a book, and even a TED Talk. On all of these platforms, she recognizes that her son has caused grief and suffering towards more people than she will ever know, and she asks for understanding when presenting her son first as someone who lacks strong mental health rather than just a killer. She tries to give a full portrayal of her emotions and her recovery process without romanticizing the her son’s actions.
In her TED Talk, she touches on the connection between a mother’s love and depression of a child. Klebold mentions a story from her workplace, when her coworker overheard Klebold telling a friend that it was impossible that her son loved her with him committing an act as so horrific. Kindly telling Klebold how wrong she was, the coworker explains how, at one point in her life, she truly believed that her kids would have been better without her. At this point in time, the coworker was also suffering from serious depression. This did not mean that she did not love her children; in fact, she loved them like she had never loved anyone or anything else before. However, due to her mental illness, she explains that it was her unconditional love for her kids that lead her to wholeheartedly believe that she was doing the best thing for them. Even in that state, she assured Klebold that “a mother’s love [is] the strongest bond on Earth” (Klebold 6:02), allowing Klebold to discover that this tragedy was not a product of lack of love for her child. In her newest work, Klebold is unloading some of the responsibility off of herself, and looks toward the situation as an activist who wants to prevent the same downward spiral of failing mental health in teens experiencing similar feelings.
Some readers and watchers of Klebold’s new work do not feel as optimistic and forwardly as she does. Although Joy Williams, a writer for Bookforum, does not blame Klebold for the massacre at Columbine, she does not feel it appropriate that Klebold refer to herself as a “suicide-loss survivor,” sharing her “survival mechanisms, [and] work on behalf of ‘brain health’” in Klebold’s book, A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy (Williams). This kind of feedback isn’t rare. Despite Klebold’s long journey toward acceptance of the event and her role in it, she will always face critics who feel as though she’s not qualified to hurt.
The truth is, Sue Klebold was a loving and caring mother, who ran a typical, but also well cared for, family. She never knew that she was raising a son who was anything other than the normal, sometimes ignorant, growing teenage boy. However, she will always live with the fact that if she had taken the time to cross the boundary of her son’s privacy and looked into that journal, her son’s life, as well as the lives of 13 others could have possibly been saved. She knows her son’s damage spreads throughout the community of Columbine High School and beyond. She never fails to mention that “[her] struggle doesn’t make [everyone else’s] any easier,” and always acknowledges skeptics like Williams: “[she] [knows] there are some who think [she] [doesn’t] have the right to any pain, but only a life of penance” (Klebold 14:19). Despite all of this, Klebold remarks:
‘I am glad I had kids and glad I had the kids I did, because the love for them — even at the price of this pain — has been the single greatest joy of my life… I know it would have been better for the world if Dylan had never been born. But I believe it would not have been better for me.’ (Williams)
She stands by her children, especially Dylan, despite all of the pain and suffering he has given to her and the world.
The overwhelming majority of us do not know what it’s like to be Sue Klebold. Although we can all wonder what she could have done differently or noticed when it mattered, she is taking measures now to attempt to make up for even a fraction of the suffering caused by her son. Even if we don’t agree with her angles towards coming forward to the public, we must notice her bravery in a time when all were against her. You don’t have to like her, or even empathize with her, but we all must respect her. Each person’s battle is unique, and Sue is just trying to bring light to and work through her own. By Sue Klebold’s wish, “we must never stop trying to know the unknowable” (Klebold 14:53).
Sources
Klebold, Susan. “‘I Will Never Know Why.’” Oprah.com, 2009, https://www.oprah.com/omagazine/susan-klebolds-o-magazine-essay-i-will-never-know-why.
Klebold, Susan. “My son was a Columbine shooter. This is my story.” TED: Ideas Worth Spreading, November 2016, https://www.ted.com/talks/sue_klebold_my_son_was_a_columbine_shooter_this_is_my_story?language=en
Pooley, Eric, et al. “Portrait of a Deadly Bond.” TIME Magazine, vol. 153, no. 18, May 1999, p.26. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,uid&db=aph&AN=1793895&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Weaver-Zercher, Valerie. “A Teenage Killer’s Brain.” The Christian Century, vol. 133, no. 15, Jul 20, 2016, pp. 36–37. ProQuest, https://search.proquest.com/docview/1806092927?accountid=11091.
Williams, J. (2016, Sep). Do we really need to talk about dylan?: Sue Klebold’s troubling memoir about raising a killer. Bookforum, 23 Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/2039468984?accountid=11091
