I've just finished reading your notebook (or as the rest of the world calls it: your diary).
And it makes me so sad. You were just a high school boy, tormented by the "popular" jocks. It's not until the last few pages that you really start illustrating a violence towards others. All the first 40-some pages were about you and your own self-hatred. And it makes me sad. You were just a high school boy: I would be willing to bet that a few years from that point you would have been a lot more mature. I wonder what your childhood was like, how your parents treated you, how your elementary school teachers were to you.
I can tell you were an awkward youth, tormented by the bullies and the fact that you didn't know how to speak to girls. I wish you hadn't hated your life so much. Just from reading your entries, I feel like it was Eric's literal hate of the world that pulled you into the events of April 20, 1999. I know he was the ring-leader. He came up with this idea: and although you helped, you wouldn't have had the guts to do this on your own. I wonder if he would have done it anyway if you had refused to help. I think the part you were looking forward to most was the suicidal part: ending your miserable life. For him, it was more about killing others. It was actually about the hate he harbored for so many people and things. I so wish someone could have reached out to you and that you would have seen that person and accepted their love. But things happen for a reason, even tragedy.
So much of the stories surrounding April 20 is all about the victims and their families: and although they are extremely important, it's all too easy to forget about the perpetrators, who were victims as well. Victims of being outcasted, bullied, hated for being different. I am, in no way, trying to justify what you and Eric did that day. It was wrong in every aspect and it should never have happened. 13 innocent people died that day. And you took their lives from them. But I do see where you may have been coming from. I don't know why this all happened, but I trust that it has happened for a reason. There's a part of me that wonders what would have happened if you hadn't walked into Columbine High School that morning armed with guns and pipe bombs. But I guess there's really no point in wondering that.
I don't really know how to end this letter, especially considering you'll never read it. So I'll just end it here. I'll never forget Columbine.
