Two years ago on the twentieth of last month at about 5:30 PM, I had just returned home from track practice. I remember getting a glass of kool-aid and going to my room to watch TV. As I flipped through the channels, my attention was caught by a news broadcast on channel 7. It told of a shooting that took place at a school in Littlerock, Colorado named Columbine High. As the reporter went further on in telling about the disaster I thought to myself, while all of this was going on I was in class with my boy Lorenzo and Larry trying to figure out what the cosine of an angle was and then applying it to a right triangle to configure the hypotenuse, not even knowing that somewhere else beyond there, that there were also students in school not knowing whether that day they would live or die. I remember when they showed clips of students being evacuated off school premises by the SWAT team and the look on their faces of terror and astonishment at what was happening. I remember watching parents wait in tears hoping that their son or daughter was going to be one of the ones to come out of the facility still breathing, walking, and in good condition. Then there were those families who were in tears for different reasons. The ones that were in tears because their loved one was one of the unlucky ones who came out of the building in a black enclosure that held death within its brace. I sat and thought to myself what would I have done if I were in that situation, and that was when I realized for the first time that everyday my parents let me leave the house not knowing whether I"ll return to them breathing or not. That they put so much trust in Columbus High School or any school for that matter to take care of me from the first step I take through that door to begin the day, till the last at the end of the day. My mind jumped from one thought to another constantly at a rate faster than can be imaginable.
