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Columbine Survivor Focuses on Future

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Associated Press

Sean Graves knows exactly how he will mark the fifth anniversary of the Columbine High massacre: He will rise early, slip out of the home he shares with his mother and brother, and head to the school before the crowds.

He will find the spot where he was shot four times and paralyzed from the waist down by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. He’ll look down at the grass where he lay injured and rubbed blood on his face to make the killers think he was dead in case they came back.

He will put a cigar on the ground where his friend, Daniel Rohrbough, died just a few feet away.

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“Watching my friend die is still traumatic, but it is in the past,” said the soft-spoken Graves, now 20. “I’m not trying to be mean. I just have to focus on today and looking at the positive and the future.”

The attack remains the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. Harris and Klebold killed a teacher and 12 of their classmates -- two outside of the suburban Denver school and 10 more huddled under tables and chairs -- before they committed suicide on April 20, 1999.

More than 20 students were wounded, including Graves and two others who were partially paralyzed.

There are dozens of survivors. Some have healed in private, graduating from Columbine and quietly moving on to college or careers. The struggles of others, including one survivor who lost a mother to suicide and a family that plunged into financial crisis, have played out in public.

Graves spent two years in grueling rehabilitation and hasn’t used a wheelchair since he graduated from Columbine in 2002. He said the power of prayer will allow him to walk away from his private memorial on Tuesday.

His mother is trying to heal her own emotional scars.

“We had to first heal our kids and families,” Natalie Graves said. “We had to be strong for everyone. Our time to break down had to wait.”

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Natalie Graves, who survived breast cancer seven years before the shooting, said she repressed her anger with Klebold and Harris until her son was well on his way to recovery.

“Those two got five years of my life, and they won’t get a minute longer,” she said.

Mother and son harbor no anger toward the parents of the killers. Graves only knew Harris and Klebold in passing, vague members of the self-described “Trench Coat Mafia.”

“I truthfully think those two were the masters of deception,” Natalie Graves said. “They took great pride in fooling everyone, including their parents. I would not want to be in those parents’ shoes. They have to live their lives every day knowing what those two did.”

Other survivors avoid discussing Columbine. Lance Kirklin, a sophomore who was shot near Graves, became a father last year. Anne Marie Hochhalter, who remains paralyzed, attended college and lives in suburban Denver. Her father, Ted, widowed after the shooting when his wife committed suicide, has remarried.

Mark Taylor, hit by more than a dozen bullets, still has one lodged near his heart. He struggled to finish school and find work. His father left the family in 2001 after 34 years of marriage, telling his wife he couldn’t handle the stress of what their son was going through. The family turned to the Salvation Army for help during one bleak Christmas.

Krista Flannigan, a victims’ consultant who worked with Columbine and Oklahoma City bombing survivors, said some of the wounded became identified with the shootings.

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“As time goes by it is a part of who they are, but it does not define who they are any longer,” Flannigan said. “Now some of the students identify themselves as college students and they may, or may not, mention they also survived the Columbine shooting.”

Graves’ girlfriend, Kara Dehart, was attracted to his sense of humor and tendency to pull pranks on friends. She was hesitant to ask about the shooting.

“At first, I was scared to ask him about it,” she said. “I knew, because my cousin went to Columbine. We just started talking about it one night, and it really hasn’t come up since.”

Dehart has seen Graves’ scrapbook, compiled after the shooting, that includes autographed photographs of him with former President Clinton and singer Shania Twain. She’s also coaxed him back onto a golf course, something he hadn’t done since before the shooting.

Some survivors and their relatives will need much more time to recover.

“At the fifth anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, some of those affected had remarried and had children,” Flannigan said. “Some had moved on to new careers. But others were still struggling with illness or emotional scars.”

Some families who rally during tragedy can fall apart. Natalie Graves and her husband, Randy, who both work at Lockheed Martin, divorced nearly two years ago.

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“We had issues before Columbine,” she said. “Columbine probably helped us stay together for a little longer.”

Her son doesn’t relish talking about Columbine, but feels a responsibility as a witness to the bloodshed.

“I never think about why it happened,” he said. “It was just straight and simple evil -- just evil.”

Harris and Klebold were armed with assault rifles, a sawed-off shotgun and handguns when they began killing students outside school about 11 a.m. Rachel Scott was the first to die. Richard Castaldo, eating lunch, was shot and paralyzed.

The killers ambushed Graves, Rohrbough and Kirklin as the three walked outside the school cafeteria. Graves tried to run back inside but was hit again by a gunshot that knocked him to the ground.

He watched in horror as Klebold returned, shot Kirklin in the face and then pulled the trigger on the shot that killed Rohrbough. Klebold stepped on Graves before walking back into the school.

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Graves knew that Rohrbough, his friend since seventh grade, was dead because the body was so still.

School videos released after the massacre showed the killers laughing as they gunned down their terrified classmates.

They said “peek-a-boo” to students cowering under tables and commented on Isaiah Shoels’ brains spilling out from the shotgun blast that killed him.

Graves said he had nightmares about being shot before the massacre.

“Deep in my heart, I knew this was meant to happen,” he said. “I used to have nightmares of being paralyzed.”

Waiting for paramedics to rescue him, Graves listened to bombs rigged by the killers going off in the school. He couldn’t move his legs.

“I knew right then that my worst nightmare had come true,” he said.

The nightmares have vanished since the shooting.

“To me, that’s a sign that it’s over. It happened, but now it’s over,” he said.

Graves at times resisted rehabilitation, but kept at it, going to class during the day and undergoing intensive therapy. He graduated on schedule, using a crutch to walk across the stage to get his diploma -- an act his mother said was “thumbing his nose at the two who paralyzed him.”

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Graves takes computer classes at a community college and likes to solve puzzles and repair vehicles.

A hunter, he worries that the memories of the victims, including his good friend Rohrbough, have been overshadowed by the “blame game” and an outcry over guns.

“People don’t know that Dan had a great sense of humor,” he said.

Graves said his only disappointment since the shooting was lagging behind in his college credits. He wants a degree to make his parents proud.

His mother takes a deep breath and sighs when told of his wish, then says: “I’m proud of him just because he is alive and breathing. I’m proud of him all of the time.”

Natalie Graves wasn’t aware of her son’s early morning memorials on earlier Columbine anniversaries.

“Then one year, I looked down where Danny had been shot and I saw a cigar,” she said. “I knew Sean had left it for him. Danny used to tell us that when he turned 16 he wanted to smoke a cigar. He didn’t live to see that birthday.”

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