“My Son was a Columbine Shooter. This is My Story” by Sue Klebold: a reflection by Benjamin M.

In this TED talk, the mother of one of the Columbine shooters speaks on the issues she has faced during her life after the attack. She briefly touches on how she people go into meeting her with so many misconceptions about her that she cannot defend knowing the terrible things her son has done. Additionally, one of the hardest things for me to hear was when she spoke about how when she received the news about the shooting, rather than hoping and praying that her son was safe, she was wishing that he was dead – not because she hated her son but quite the opposite. She wanted him to be at peace with all of his issues that caused him to make himself the outsider, and because she states the she immediately knew that her son was one of the perpetrators and she just wanted other children and teachers to be safe from his devilish fury. While her son may have been an incredibly nasty and potentially misunderstood child, based off of evidence from the trial, his family gave him what they considered the best, and most loving atmosphere possible and because of his actions, people will never look at his family with respect and as hard as it may be, I believe that the public should empathize with her and her family, they tried getting their child help and tried to get him to be more social and continued to love and support him but he chose to go the complete opposite direction. Clearly he was incredibly unstable and mentally unhealthy. As outsiders we will never understand what it is like to have one member of your family single handedly destroy your name and everything you have worked for and I believe empathy is the only possible way to make the family believe that they were not the reason for their son’s/brother’s madness.