I stood in the milking parlor with the stained iodine jug in my hand. It was a hot, late August afternoon, and I was milking cows on our family dairy farm with my oldest sister and our neighbor.
The neighbor gal was several years older, and I admired her greatly. She paused while hanging on a milker and asked me if I was excited to start high school the following week.
I responded with the usual excitement, worries, and fears that only an incoming freshman experiences, as I continued my “dipping” the cows with my iodine.
It’s a strange memory in many ways. First of all, I don’t have a lot of memories of my youth for whatever reason, and secondly, I spent thousands of hours milking cows and chatting with my fellow milkmaids in my younger years. What made this conversation stand out as a core memory? Why is it a memory that comes to mind often, and unannounced?
I don’t remember my freshman orientation or even my first day of 9th grade. The next memory I have of my freshman year was walking down the hall crossing in front of the gym to the lunch room, chatting with my best friend. The date was September 24, 2003. I remember going through the lunch line and sitting down at our table. I had taken a few small bites when the lunch room erupted with confusion. There were teachers in emergency mode, trying not to panic, doing their best to calmly file us out of the cafeteria and into a small classroom.
We all looked at each other in utter confusion. It was a gorgeous, sunny September day, so it couldn’t be a tornado drill, which was our first guess. It wasn’t a fire drill, because we were speed walking toward a classroom inside the school.
The teachers wouldn’t tell us what was happening.
Finally, one of the upperclassmen, who was one of the few privileged ones to have a cell phone, got a text from his dad asking if he was ok.
As this student corresponded with his dad, he was able to paint the picture of the horror that was unfolding around us. There was a student with a gun, and there were several injured students at that point.
The term code red was thrown around, but I had no idea what that meant, and I couldn’t hear the principal who made the announcement because the cafeteria was too loud.
Could it be that my childhood innocence was stripped away that early afternoon as we filed out of the classroom, and down hallways lined with crime scene tape? We felt such a violation walking out of the building with our hands above our heads and sharpshooters with guns pointing down at us.
Every single person in the building that September day, all those years ago, will tell a different story. We all experienced it differently, in what we saw and heard, but most importantly we will all remember it differently.
Experiences like this also affect everyone in a different way, and whether we realize it or not, they leave a lasting impact on our lives. I wasn’t very close to the victims. I had a few classes with my classmate Seth who was killed in this tragic event, but we didn’t run in the same social circle, so I felt that I had no right to grieve as others had.
I knew the student who brought the gun to school that day a bit better, as his locker had been right next to mine for the past two years thanks to the magic of alphabetical order. But even given those circumstances, we were both extremely shy so we spoke a handful of words to each other over those years.
I never sought out the professionals that the school brought in to help us process what had happened. I figured they were for those who were much closer to the victims, and I had no right to them.
I just wanted to pretend that it never happened, so when I saw students eagerly approach the media outlets stationed by the door of the high school, I wanted to vomit. I just wanted to get into the building and get on with my day, pretending that everything was fine.
However, for the past 21 years, I have semi-successfully disassociated from the fact that there was a shooting in my high school during my freshman year, perpetuated by a disturbed and desperate student with fatal consequences for two young men. I knew logistically speaking that it had happened, but I had never allowed myself to process it because I didn’t think I deserved to.
But Our Lord is so good and wants our hearts to be healed, and for whatever reason, He asked me to go back and sit with this. Revisiting the event was really hard! It was the first time that I had ever allowed myself to cry as I saw 14-year-old Leah walking down those halls and finally felt the terror of what had happened.
2 decades later, I have experienced a deep healing that I didn’t even know I needed! I finally grieved for those two students who lost their lives. I grieved for their beautiful families and friends. I grieved for my entire freshman class who had their innocence so cruelly ripped away from us. I grieved for the young man who was in such a dark place that he really thought murder was the only way out.
My oldest son is a freshman this year in our local high school. Maybe these deep-seated wounds are resurfacing as I’m watching his naivety and overwhelm in navigating the big, scary high school. I am finding myself wanting to fiercely protect him. I don’t mean physically- he is a big, strong farm kid who towers over me, but I mean academically and socially. I am struggling to give him the freedom to experience natural consequences.
Are these feelings 14-year-old Leah, frozen in time, asking for protection and begging for her innocence back?
I wonder if the memory of me in the milking parlor, nervously dreaming about my freshman year on that lazy, late-summer afternoon is such a core memory because it was formed before such a traumatic keystone moment in my life.
Our God is a God of healing, and His timing is perfect. He brought this wound to the surface, and I know he will give me the peace that I didn’t even know that I was searching for all of these years.
Dear Lord, I ask you to bind up this deep wound that has been buried for 21 years. It has been painful for me to go back and re-live these horrific moments, but I know Your grace is a healing balm that will give glory to Your Name in my brokenness. I ask you to bless and heal the thousands of us who were cut so deeply all of those years ago, and all of those affected by similar evil events.
I ask You to protect our children from the evil one who hates them because of the beautiful miracles that they are. Please bring about the proper healing and care for those sick enough to even consider such a heinous act.
Lord, healer of hearts, heal our broken hearts today.
Amen.
I thank you, dear reader, for walking with me. I ask for your continued prayers and know that I am praying for every one of you. I want you to be brave and ask Our Lord to show you the areas of your life that also need healing. Ask Him to reveal that wound that is hidden so deeply inside of you that you may have even forgotten that it existed. Trust in His mercy and goodness, and always have hope.
Until next time, your sister in Christ,
Leah
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