The Lives of The Dead

By now, the blood on the dormitory walls has dried; a hard scale that'll eventually be scrubbed away, once the investigations are over. Science tells us that it'll never truly be gone, that the cells of those dead students and professors will be embedded in those buildings forever; of course, memory also will ensconce them there as well. And of course, every time there's a school shooting – how horrific it is that we can now say "every time there's a school shooting" - the questions and finger pointing begin, always aimed at what most people believe to be the heart of the matter: gun control.

But there's another question that's been on my mind this morning. Oddly, it popped into my head as I watched Lucas power down an oversized bowl of Rice Krispies.

What if that were my kid?

What if he killed people? And what if he'd sent a video to NBC shortly beforehand, explaining in obscene detail why it was that those people had to die?

Could I have done anything?

What if, over the years, I'd received warnings, warnings from doctors and police that there were signs, that my kid was clinically depressed, that he was perhaps dangerous, to himself, to others?

Would I have done anything?

I feel for Cho Seung-Hui's parents. I see them looking at a photo of him as a baby, new to the world. It's impossible, I think, to not have a modicum of grief for them; this does not detract in any way from the grief one feels for the parents of those that he murdered. But I wonder about his parents as well. I wonder if they recognized, somewhere along the way, that something was not right with their son. I wonder if they tried to do something, to talk to him, to get him to a psychiatrist, something, anything. As parents, our instinct is to place our kids on pedestals; they're just kids, we reason, and whatever this is – the sullenness, the anger, the isolation – it'll pass. Hell, we turned out fine!

I'm reminded of the Vietnam vet and writer Gustav Hasford, who wrote that "the dead know only one thing: that it is better to be alive." The questions we ask after such things are moot, in a sense; the answers don't bring anyone back. I think of Dylan Klebold's parents, and Eric Harris', and wonder how it was that they did not know about the pipe bombs in the bedrooms. In the same way, I wonder about Cho's parents. What kept them from seeing a hard, dark truth about their kids?

Could they have done anything? I don't know.

Perhaps the real question is – did they try?