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 Columbine High School 4.9.99   -   Arapahoe High School 12.13.13

I will never forget April 20, 1999. I was in fifth grade at Bear Canyon Elementary School in Highlands Ranch, CO. It was towards the end of the school day when the announcement came over the intercom that we were on a lock-down and that no student would be allowed to leave without their parents. We didn't know what was going on, but there was a particular unease in the atmosphere.

When my mom came to pick up my siblings and I it was apparent that she had been crying. She told us that something had happened at a nearby high school, but she wouldn't tell us what. My brother and sister were too young to care, but I was troubled. When we got home she sat by the TV again but told us we could not watch. I went up to the master bathroom and looked out the window; I could see helicopters circling in the distance over what I would later learn was Columbine high school.

N was much closer in proximity to Columbine. He was in seventh grade at a middle school that fed into both Columbine and the high school that he attended. They were locked down until the evening when their parents had to retrieve them.

The woman who had cut my hair since I was a baby lost her step-daughter, Rachel Scott, in the shooting.

One of my good friend's husbands was there, at Columbine, when the shooting happened. He witnessed some awful things but doesn't like to talk about it.

It's a small world and all of this was too close to home.

Today when I heard the news of the shooting at Arapahoe high school, I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. This kind of thing should have never happened again, and not only has it happened many times since Columbine, but it happened again at a school 8 miles from Columbine.

Today I took Reagan to dance class, and because we were running late I took a faster route, and passed right by Columbine. I looked at the library, facing the road, as I drove and a chill went down my spine. For all the innocent people that died there, for the person who was seriously injured in today's shooting, for everyone who has ever been affected by a shooting, and for the world at large.

My thoughts right now are with those that have been affected by today's shooting, and every time this happens I will hope against all hopes that it will be the last.