Death, be not proud

Just describing the scene is forbidding. Late Tuesday afternoon, the Jefferson County sheriff told reporters that many kids _ he wasn't sure of the number _ had been found dead inside Littleton's Columbine High School. Shortly afterward, a dozen empty ambulances that were parked on Pierce Street began slowly pulling away.

This took several minutes. The ambulances had to negotiate a road that had been transformed into a parking lot full of police cars and fire trucks. The implication of the ambulances' departure didn't set in for a while. The bodies of young people still in that school weren't going anywhere. Not for another day. And the parents' anguish rose as steadily as the ambulances filed away.

A few blocks away, parents were gathered at Leawood Elementary School, one of two meeting places designated for parents waiting to be reunited with their children. As afternoon succumbed to night, most of the parents saw their kids. Some did not. Because the police teams were sweeping the school for bombs and evidence, the bodies of the kids remained at the crime scene through the night, then through the next day. At 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, the Jefferson County sheriff reported that "removal will take place later today." The Jefferson district attorney reported that "tentative notifications" had been made of all the dead.

Those tender euphemisms varnished awful truths.

By this point, the ordeal was 27 hours old. The parents had to sit and wait, forbidden to enter the school, knowing that their children lay dead within. Probably. Some said that their children may have been lucky, perhaps still hiding in some schoolhouse cranny, perhaps unconscious but alive, perhaps recuperating anonymously in a hospital. Thoughts like these consumed an endless night and another ghastly day. The agony defies description.

Scripps Howard News Service reported a scene in front of Columbine Library, just over the hill from the high school, which was also established as a meeting place for parents and students. "A wide-eyed woman, barely able to speak, asked counselors at the library door to help her find her son. She told them his name. She told them again. Again. And again."

It wasn't until 5 p.m. Wednesday, long after parents knew the truth, that most of the bodies were moved from where the killers left them.

A national group called Parents of Murdered Children has an active chapter in Denver and is standing by to help, the group's executive director said Wednesday afternoon. The telephone number, incidentally, is (303) 232-6343. But the grieving parents had not yet contacted the support group, because grieving can't begin until a death is confirmed.

Gizane Indart, supervisor of child, adolescent and family services at Boulder County Mental Health Center, emphasized Wednesday that a parent's grieving is usually a long process. It is never done. A grieving parent typically goes through stages of shock, anger, depression and, eventually, acceptance.

Bereaved parents need to have a place to be listened to, Indart says. As a community, she says, we should be open, active, emphatic listeners. And patient listeners. "We cannot expect a quick fix. These are parents who are in pain, who have been hurt, whose lives have been shattered. We cannot expect anybody in this situation to go back to normal lives tomorrow."

Furthermore, Indart notes, parents will for the rest of their lives confront memory "triggers" such as a child's birthday. Those triggers will transport the parent back to stage one of the grieving process. Forever.

As a community, then, we must listen. Forever.

Boulder County Mental Health Center may be reached at (303) 447-1665.