'This is a good day'

Onan afternoon as bright as April 20, 1999, was dark, the Columbine Memorial adds a new chapter about love and triumph

Kevin Vaughan, Rocky Mountain News

Saturday, September 22, 2007

It is so peaceful, this place - flagstone and granite carved into a hillside overlooking a school that will forever be linked with violence.

And on a day that was as bright and sunny and happy as April 20, 1999, was cold and dark and sad, thousands dedicated the memorial to the victims of the Columbine tragedy and, perhaps, began to write a new chapter on what was once the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.

A chapter about love, about triumph, about spirit.

"I think it's going to be a place of healing and forgiveness," said Patricia DePooter, who lost her son, Cory, at Columbine. "It's a beautiful place. It's so tranquil."

On one side, water splashed from six fountains, and if you closed your eyes, it wasn't hard to imagine a mountain stream. In the middle were words in granite - loving memories and thoughts about the 12 students and the teacher killed in a suburban high school. Around the edges, more thoughts, some simple, some complicated, about the tragedy and society.

And above it all an overlook, where you could see the sun glistening on Johnston Reservoir and the foothills so close it seemed you could almost reach out and touch them.

'A place to have quiet'

"It's like God's creation all around us, and then the memorial is right in the middle of it," said Don Fleming, who lost his daughter, Kelly, in the attack.

He and the other Columbine families got their first look at the finished memorial next to Columbine High in private visits earlier in the day.

"It was real quiet," said Joe Kechter, father of Matt. "I can see it as a place to have quiet and just sit back and think."

Friday's dedication ceremony had begun with music and prayers and words meant to express the feelings of families who lost children, of former students who were injured in the tragedy, of a community whose heart was ripped open in a senseless act of violence.

And then the families made their way across Clement Park to the memorial, and they stood quietly while doves fluttered out of small crates into the afternoon sky - 13, at first, one for each of those who were slain. And then hundreds more.

Moments later, hundreds of people pressed into the memorial, reading the inscriptions, looking at the lavender, pink and maroon carnations left in honor of the victims, talking quietly.

"It really struck me," said Sue Petrone, who lost her son, Dan Rohrbough. "It's a neat place. It's very calming. It's a place you can come and reflect."

All around them were hundreds of others - estimates put the crowd at 2,000 to 3,000 - who came because they cared, or because they were connected, somehow, to what happened on that awful Tuesday a little more than eight years ago.

There was John-Michael Keyes, who lost his daughter, Emily, after a deranged man stormed Platte Canyon High School nearly a year ago.

There was Gov. Bill Ritter, who, as Denver's district attorney on April 20, 1999, had the crushing job of notifying some parents that their children were dead.

Mix of tragedy, triumph

Ritter came Friday with his wife, Jeannie, and marveled at the words carved into granite tablets.

"It's an interesting mix of the testimony of tragedy and the grace of triumph," he said.

And there was Brian Stepp, who helped release doves, welcomed back as one who had been in the school that day.

"For the first five years or so there was April 20th and there was lots of crying, but today isn't like that," he said. "Today is just a great day."

Up at the top of the hill, where you could see the buildings of downtown to the northeast and the Rocky Mountains to the west, Dee Fleming stood talking with friends.

There was no sadness. There were jokes and smiles, hugs and snapshots.

"This is a good day," she said.

Behind her, the late-afternoon sun slid slowly from the sky - throwing golden light across the memorial.

Staff writer Lynn Bartels contributed to this report.