Posted on 10/10/2009 4:18:47 PM PDT by real saxophonist
Dylan Klebold's mom speaks in "O" magazine
"No inkling" of plans for Columbine massacre
By The Denver Post
Posted: 10/10/2009
Susan Klebold wrote an essay in the November issue of O magazine. (Denver Post file photo )An essay by the mother of Columbine killer Dylan Klebold says she had "no inkling" of her son's inner turmoil, and her examination of his journals has prompted her to learn about suicide in an effort to understand the school shooting.
The essay by Susan Klebold, which appears in the November issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, explores her son's role in the 1999 massacre where he and co-conspirator Eric Harris killed 12 students and a teacher and left two dozen wounded before killing themselves.
Neither family has spoken at length in the aftermath of what at the time marked the most deadly school shooting in U.S. history. Pending litigation contributed to the silence for several years, but even with the lawsuits resolved, repeated requests for interviews have been turned down.
In a news release, Oprah Winfrey also noted that Susan Klebold had declined interview requests but then, several months ago, agreed to write about her personal experience. The magazine released a few advance excerpts.
"From the writings Dylan left behind, criminal psychologists have concluded that he was depressed and suicidal," Susan Klebold wrote in one passage. "When I first saw copied pages of these writings, they broke my heart. I'd had no inkling of the battle Dylan was waging in his mind."
She added: "Dylan's participation in the massacre was impossible for me to accept until I began to connect it to his own death. Once I saw his journals, it was clear to me that Dylan entered the school with the intention of dying there. And so in order to understand what he might have been thinking, I started to learn all I could about suicide."
Susan Klebold received no payment for the essay, said a magazine spokesperson, but hoped to "raise suicide awareness and to generate support for organizations such as The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the American Association of Suicidology."
A spokesperson for the Klebolds' attorney, Gary Lozow, would not field questions and said that the Klebold family would have no further comment.
The magazine hits newsstands on Tuesday.
In another passage, Susan Klebold recounted the early morning before the violence began:
"Early on April 20, I was getting dressed for work when I heard Dylan bound down the stairs and open the front door. Wondering why he was in such a hurry when he could have slept another 20 minutes, I poked my head out of the bedroom. 'Dyl?' All he said was 'Bye.' The front door slammed, and his car sped down the driveway. His voice had sounded sharp. I figured he was mad because he'd had to get up early to give someone a lift to class. I had no idea that I had just heard his voice for the last time."
Another excerpt describes her struggle to come to grips with the tragedy.
"For the rest of my life, I will be haunted by the horror and anguish Dylan caused," she wrote. "I cannot look at a child in a grocery store or on the street without thinking about how my son's schoolmates spent the last moments of their lives. Dylan changed everything I believed about myself, about God, about family, and about love."
Which sentence(s) or phrase(s) do you find inaccurate to reality?
Answer my question first.
How many children do you have?
Except, it’s the children who make the sacrifices for the working mom, not the mom.
How many babies did your obstetrician personally give birth to?
I helped raise my sister the first 10 years of her life.
I have a handful of close emotional children and many dozens less close.
I’ve counseled probably in excess of 3,000 people in individual, family and group sessions over 35+ years and known significant details about the lives of another 2,500 plus individuals and their families.
YOUR TURN to answer my questions, hot shot.
Ball Four by Jim Boutan
I’ve answered that question many times here on and above.
That’s why I had a vasectomy—wasn’t about to extend my family’s craziness to the next generation.
YOUR TURN.
Thanks.
BTW, I don’t recall . . . do you find yourself more in agreement with my strong assertions on this topic or in opposition to them?
You’ve been around here long enough to know, Quix is an idiot and a weird one to boot...
Thanks. Love it.
Better than a Rorschach.
So, how well in touch are you with your kids/teens?
I gather that in your rubber dictionary
idiot = anyone who doesn’t think and act very closely to how you think and act.
Cute, Clyde.
You ain’t riden’ the horse boy so you have no room to talk. You can watch others ride till you turn blue and you still aren’t a horseman.
Anyone who thinks that they know everything in another person’s mind is a bigger idiot than Al Gore and more of a narcissist than Obama.
She makes it as well, but the children pay, first. She just has years of apologies that will ring hollow and she will get an earful of recrimination on the horizon. There will be years where she tries to explain her failure to them. She’ll learn that she made a mistake, but by then it will be too late.
All of that being said, there are families where the father makes very little and the mother must work. I’m aware of that.
But in many American families the mother works so that the family can have a second SUV, a large home and many extras that aren’t considered necessities. Those are the families where the children may look back and ask mom if it was worth it. The children won’t understand why the mother chose money over their welfare.
No, I just realize that you were off the ranch long ago with some of your “off” worldly postings.
You are right and I am not going to argue this with him any more than I am going to do the same concerning the color red with a blind man.
You are THOROUGHLY WRONG.
EVERY SINGLE SUCCESSFUL WELL BONDED PARENT I’VE EVER MET, COUNSELED OR OBSERVED
KNEW VERY ACCURATELY within reasonably narrow parameters and specifics
precisely what was going in in their child’s head at any age.
Certainly as individuation becomes a priority for teens, there’s more detachment and less specific moment by moment ‘mind reading.’
However, even then, the successful parents STILL KNEW reasonably well what was going on in their kids minds. Sure it was an educated guess. But with close relationships—their guesses were overwhelmingly correct an overwhelming amount of the time.
Sorry you’re so clueless about what’s going on in your kids’ heads.
Actually, I’m usually 80+% accurate about a person, their psychology and priorities just from a good photo that shows their eyes.
Being in an emotionally bonded relationship where people are PAYING ATTENTION to one another makes understanding what’s going on in another person RELATIVELY easy.
except maybe for the mentally challenged and utterly selfish and clueless.
As I think about it, I can see this happening.
I can see my sister coming to help me.
I can see her driving me to the hairdresser and sitting with me while I got my hair done.
I can see her going through my closet and helping me gather clothing for the funeral. I can see her ironing my clothing. I can even see her driving to the store to purchase dark hose so that I will look presentable at the funeral. I can see her polishing my black shoes for me.
On the day of the funeral I can see her physically helping me dress in my undergarments, my dress and helping me arrange my hair and fasten my jewelry.
I can see my sister literally holding my hand and walking me through all of the physical, normal steps of life as I get ready to go to my son’s funeral.
All of that may seem strange to you, but my sister would see it as a duty... to help me with every little step, from seeing that my hair was done to making sure which ring I wore on which hand and that I was carrying my small black bag in my right hand. Because she would be thinking to herself that the entire situation was so terribly awful and painful that by goodness, she was going to make sure I got through every little step, A, B, C, through Z, that I did EVERYTHING, and that I got through it without losing my mind.
This is how my sister would help me cope. She would see it as a duty.
Now, in your mind, this is foreign and strange. In my sister’s mind, this would be natural. It would be her role, one sister helping another get through the grieving process.
To each his own.
I guess there’s no accounting for taste or for ignorance.
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