COLUMBINE Some survivors still feel pain of school massacre

Thirteen innocent people were murdered, and more than 20 were injured.
LITTLETON, Colo. (AP) -- Sean Graves knows exactly how he will observe Tuesday's fifth anniversary of the Columbine High massacre: He will rise early, head to the school before the crowds and find the exact spot where he fell after he was shot four times and paralyzed from the waist down.
He'll look down at the grass where he lay injured and rubbed blood on his face to make the shooters think he was dead. He will place a cigar on the ground where his friend, Daniel Rohrbough, died a few feet away.
"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 at Columbine remains the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. The two shooters killed a teacher and 12 of their classmates -- two outside the suburban Denver school and 10 more huddled under tables and chairs in the library -- then killed themselves April 20, 1999.
More than 20 students were wounded, including Graves and two others who were partially paralyzed.
The aftermath
Some survivors have healed, moving on to college or careers. But others have struggled -- one lost her mother to suicide, while others have had their families break up or plunge into financial crisis.
Graves spent two years in grueling rehabilitation and hasn't used a wheelchair since his graduation from Columbine in 2002. He used a crutch to walk across the stage for his diploma, an act his mother said was "thumbing his nose at the two who paralyzed him."
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."
Natalie Graves said she repressed her anger with the two killers 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.
Other survivors avoid talking publicly about Columbine. Lance Kirklin, a sophomore who was shot, became a father last year. Anne Marie Hochhalter, who remains paralyzed, attended college and lives in the Denver area; her mother committed suicide six months after the shootings.
Mark Taylor, hit by more than a dozen bullets and with one still lodged near his heart, 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 their son's problems.
Soon afterward, his mother lost her job and a grandmother died of breast cancer. The family struggled to pay bills and turned to the Salvation Army for help.
Natalie Graves and her husband, Randy, divorced nearly two years ago. "We had issues before Columbine," she said. "Columbine probably helped us stay together for a little longer."
Part of their lives
Some survivors became identified with the massacre, said Krista Flannigan, a victims' consultant who worked with Columbine and Oklahoma City bombing survivors.
"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 hesitant to ask about the shooting.
"I knew, because my cousin went to Columbine," she said. "We just started talking about it one night and it really hasn't come up since."
Graves doesn't relish talking about Columbine but feels a responsibility to recall the bloodshed.
"I never think about why it happened," he said. "It was just straight and simple evil -- just evil."
Graves, Rohrbough and Kirklin were ambushed outside the school cafeteria. Graves watched in horror as one of the shooters returned, shot Kirklin in the face and then fired the shot that killed Rohrbough. The shooter stepped on Graves' limp body.
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