Journey with Rachel

Journey with Rachel: 1999

By Janna Graber

This past year has taken me on a voyage that I never asked for or expected to take. As a freelance writer in the west, I live far from the editors I write for. I don’t have the benefits of lunching with agents, editors, or even other writers who work in my same field. But I do have one thing going for me – a thriving community full of interesting people.

I love finding and writing the stories of the people I meet. It’s a privilege to climb into someone else’s life for a day. What could be more fun than riding with a fire chief for the afternoon, spending a morning on a cattle ranch, or hearing tales of a long lost love? Of course, there have been sad stories as well, and I always appreciate the trust my subjects give me as I write of their past.

But that’s just it. It’s someone else's story. I am never in the picture. I’m the cameraman behind the camera.

Then the Columbine High School tragedy happened. And this time the story hit home – hard.

I was working on a parenting article that morning of April 20, 1999. How could I have known, at that very moment, the boy who lived six houses down was taking his guns into our local school? I never dreamed that he and another boy would shoot the 17-year-old girl down the street, and kill the sweet teenage boy on the next block.

As I looked in horror at the school I could see from my window, I knew there would be stories to write. There would be tales of bravery, stories of sorrow. But I didn’t want to write them.

The worldwide media descended on our small community that next day. I drove up to the park by the school, and watched them set up their big lights and tangles of cords. On my way out of the house that morning, I had grabbed my camera and stuffed a pad of paper into my pocket. But when I looked into the sorrowful faces of my neighbors, I couldn’t bring the notebook or camera out. I just stared at the circles of blank faces, silent and unable to move.

For several weeks, the days seemed to blur and I watched it all, removed like a silent observer. The press fed stories from our town out into the world, but none of my words were among them. There was nothing I could say.

Drifting in a sea of numbness, I tried to search for meaning in such a senseless loss. In doing so, I began talking to others, digging for something positive. As I listened, I found nuggets of hope, reasons to believe in the goodness of mankind. There was the neighbor who had pulled our neighborhood together, the women who brought meals to the wounded, and the grieving father who began working for change in our country.

What I found as I talked to my community was that there were positive stories, even among the grieving. There were stories that had to be told.

So I began to write them. But as I talked to wounded students, grateful parents, and those who had lost their children, their lives began to seep into mine. They trusted me with their deepest sorrow and it touched me deeply. I felt their horror, and saw all the horrifying images they described.

But still, I tried to remain apart, an “untouched journalist” just doing my job.

Then the nightmares began; their stories relived in my dreams. At night I would awaken, unable to go back to sleep for the fear I felt. I knew the source of my dread: Columbine had now entered my life in all its horror.

I thought of other journalists who had been in my same shoes. How had the newspapermen in Oklahoma handled it when a building in their neighborhood was bombed? What about those on assignment in war-torn regions of the world? Or those who write about terrifying personal experiences?

How do you keep a professional distance and still remain human?

Strangely enough, my healing came from those I wrote about. As I sat and listened to those who had suffered terribly, I began to hear their hope just as loudly as their fear. I marveled at the strength of the human spirit, and the ability to see the positive among the evil.

Then I went to interview Beth Nimmo, the mother of 17-year-old Rachel Scott, a Columbine student who had been killed outside the school.

As Beth spoke about her daughter, struggling to keep the tears from her eyes, she brought out four very worn journals and placed them carefully in my hand. These were Rachel’s words, she said.

Rachel’s parents hadn’t known that their daughter was such an excellent writer. They had seen her as the happy and fun-loving person she was. But when Rachel’s voice was silenced on April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School, they came across the journals that their daughter had left behind. And they came to know a side of their daughter that they had never seen before.

In teenage handwritten scrawl, Rachel had written:

“I write

not for the sake of glory

not for the sake of fame

not for the sake of success

but for the sake of my soul.”

Rachel’s writings flowed with passion, showing a complete familiarity with the use of written language. But it wasn’t the craft of her writing that grabbed me, but the content.

She poured out her doubts, her fears, her love of God, and hope to be more like Him. Rachel lived in her words, forever reaching out to her family and friends. Her words reached out to touch something held deep inside of me.

Rachel had left this world, but she still spoke to those who read her words.

Then I thought of my own journal, thrown carelessly into the back of a drawer. I hadn’t written a word in it since April – the month of the Columbine Massacre. In the course of covering the story, I had written about so much tragedy that there was no more left to write. My well was dry. My heart was numb.

But now, running my hand over the pages of Rachel’s journal, I thought, “It’s time to write my own words.”

That night, I poured my heart out onto those pages – my anger at the boys who had hurt so many people, the sorrow I had seen in so many faces, my fears for my own children in what I had thought was a safe community.

That night, there were no nightmares. By simply admitting that the story I covered affected me too, it freed me from something I can’t explain.

Since then, I’ve come to understand that the stories I write are a part of me too. The people I interview enrich me. They give me more than I give them. Their trust is a gift – and I’m grateful.