I remember my friend, Julie and I laughing before we heard it. I think we were laughing at how we were laughing. We were snorting big long snorts that rippled into guffaws. I think we were late to school because of it. I'm not certain. But when we heard the loud bangs it only made us laugh harder, oblivious that we were in any real danger. I had a vague thought that they were firecrackers. My second grade teacher from the year before cracked the door to her room and hissed at us, beckoning us with an urgency I'd never seen before. I was nine years old. I looked at Julie. What'd we do, we shrugged. "Come. Here.", she demanded again in a shouted whisper, still holding the door ajar mere inches and frantically fanning her hand. The shots rang out again and I don't recall registering them as gunshots, having never heard live gunfire before (or on film for that matter...television was different then). But I felt an electric surge of fear and we ran as fast as we could down the embankment to her room. Once inside, I looked around and saw no one until we walked to the back and saw about a dozen or more students and teachers huddled on the floor, some crying, some stunned, all silent. We would stay there for a few hours until one by one, we were told to run as fast as we could down the hall to where we for hours would clump together in the safety of the windowless girls' bathroom.
It was the day 16 year old Brenda Spencer walked across the street from her home and spat out gunfire from her Christmas rifle at the elementary school. She shot eight kids, a police officer and the custodian and principal of our school, Mike Suchar and Burton Wragg who died as they were trying to block bullets aimed for children.
I will never forget. For years, I would replay the events in my dreams, imagining that I would befriend Brenda and talk her out of what she was doing. The strongest image that comes to me when I think back on that day is not the bleeding children, the lifeless body on a stretcher or the sight of our teachers crying. It is how Brenda looked before this horrible day, standing on her front lawn, stoned, spaced out, a little hostile... I'd said hello and got no response whatsoever. Surely there were adults who saw what I did. Was there no one who would reach out and help her work through what she was going through?
Friends, think. Are there any Brenda Spencers in your midst? Will you not reach out and help?
Comments