The mother of Dylan Klebold, who with Eric Harris went on the suicidal rampage in 1999 that killed 13 and wounded dozens at Columbine High School, told the author of a new book that during the incident she prayed hard that her son would kill himself.
“While every other mother in Littleton was praying that her child was safe, I had to pray that mine would die before he hurt anyone else,” Sue Klebold told author Andrew Solomon in his just-released book, “Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity.”
The 976-page work by the National Book Award-winning writer, compiled over 10 years, delves into the lives of families that have dealt with a wide variety of factors that made their children “exceptional” — from autism to multiple disabilities to being prodigies or the product of rape.
In a chapter titled “Crime,” Solomon explores through several families the proposition that good parenting doesn’t preclude bad kids, yet parents of criminals can find themselves “morally diminished.” He expected his interviews with the Klebolds to shed light on Dylan’s actions, but instead he became even more “deeply mystified” as he came to know the family.
Sue Klebold prayed for her son’s suicide in part because it would be better to know that he had wanted to die than to face unanswerable questions if he were killed by police.
“Maybe I was right,” she told Solomon, “but I’ve spent so many hours regretting that prayer: I wished for my son to kill himself, and he did.”
In the wake of what then was the worst school shooting in U.S. history, the parents suffered not only the loss of their son but public hostility. Although they experienced pockets of love and sympathy, their silence on the advice of their attorney did nothing to counter widespread anger.
Tom and Sue Klebold explain in the book that they had no idea of the tragedy that lurked ahead. For a time, they clung to the hope that their son hadn’t killed anyone.
But the police report on the massacre, and the release of the so-called “basement tapes” in which Harris and Klebold unleashed their venom in front of a video camera, destroyed that lingering denial.
“I saw the end product of my life’s work: I had created a monster,” Sue Klebold told Solomon. “For the first time, I understood how Dylan appeared to others. When I saw his disdain for the world, I almost hated my son. I wanted to destroy the video that preserved him in that twisted and fierce mistake.”
The Klebolds didn’t move away after the shootings. For Sue, staying meant that she could at least still be surrounded by people who liked her and had liked Dylan. For Tom, staying was more a response to all the public anger.
“If we’d left, they would have won,” he said. “Staying was my defiance of the people who were trying to grind us into the ground.”
For Sue Klebold, Columbine provoked a newfound empathy for other alienated individuals and made her feel “more connected to mankind.” If she could speak with her son, she would ask his forgiveness that she could not help the boy she loved so much — and still loves.
“I know it would have been better for the world if Dylan had never been born,” she said. “But I believe it would not have been better for me.”
