7 years ago today....

.... I was sitting at my desk just slammed with work. I was having the kind of day that people write horror movies about. Bad. And I was crank-y! I had my office door shut, my phone on "Do Not Disturb", blaring a CD, ignoring my cell phone. I was too busy and needed to focus. When my office was door closed (at my old station) it didn't look like I was there. I noticed that my office phone kept ringing and ringing...and the number of voicemails were racking up faster than usual.

Finally I picked up one of the calls. I growled through my teeth, "This is Emily."

Without saying hello, I hear, "Tell me that your sister doesn't go to Columbine." It was my friend Matt who worked at the local News Talk radio station.

"No she goes to Alameda, why?"

"Oh God, you haven't heard Em. Right now there is a horrible shoot out at Columbine going on. Something like 6 or 7 are confirmed dead and the gunmen are still in there shooting," Matt said.

I froze. Chills. "Oh God Matt, I have 3 of my girls (girls that I was coaching) and my high school softball coach in there (he was the Athletic Director). I gotta go. Call you later. Call me with updates." I hung up.

I walk out of my office into the hall to find people crying and huddled around the TV. I am in shock. I go back to my office and call all 3 of my girls at home and leave messages to call me. The first girl to call me back is Crystal. She is bawling and shaking as she tells me what she saw. She was one of the kids that was helped out of the building by the teacher who was killed. She saw him get shot. We talked for about 30 minutes. I was bawling too. I walk back out into the hallway and tell some friends that I tracked down one of my girls. One of our Program Directors overheard me and said that CBS (our parent company) was calling to see if they could get a phone interview with one of the kids inside Columbine when it happened. I agreed to call Crystal's parents and see if they would allow her to do this. Crystal wanted to talk. She wanted the world to know what was going on. She was on a CBS tv feed all over the nation. It was hard to hear her voice on the tv. I spent the next 10 hours securing grief counselors to come into the studios the next day and take phone calls from the public. It was hard to move. It was hard to still work. My ears were ringing non-stop and I felt numb. I wanted to go home so bad. I get word that one of my high school buddy's little sister was killed. She was the one who told the killers that God would forgive them...seconds before they shot her. It was horrible....horrible.

All of my girls and my high school coach got out alive...but not ok...mentally not ok.

I finally got home around midnight from work. My boyfriend at the time, Alex, was waiting there for me. He is from Kansas City and didn't have a real concept on how close to home this was for me. He asked me where Columbine was located. I said, "Remember when we went to my Grandparents for Thanksgiving? Columbine is 3 blocks away from their house." He was floored. He didn't realize it was so close.

The next day I got up super early to get into the station to coordinate the grief counselors. I was sitting at a light in my car. One of the radio stations had taken that song "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan and added clips of the news coverage from the Columbine tragedy inbetween the words to the song. I started bawling. The kind of cry where your chin quivers and you can't help but wail outloud. I slammed my hand on the steering wheel. I looked at the guy in the car next to me. He was crying just as hard as I was. We tried to give each other a look of unspoken encouragement. I will never forget the look on his face.

I can't believe it's been 7 years.