I wasn’t aware that Dylan (pretended he) wanted to go to University of Arizona! I’m an Arizonan and it kind of makes my stomach explode with butterflies (??!?!) that Dyl visited my state and also had interest in the same University as me!

I’m not sure if Dylan full-on ‘pretended’ to go to UoA. I tend to see it as Dyl planning for two potential destinies, and he was weighing his options along the way. It just so happens that this other alternative plan turned out to be more attractive for him in that it was a reprieve from this painful existence he led and so the burden of continuing on with an uncertain future seemed the easier route to take. More importantly, the ‘dead end’ future panned out quite easily with nothing to stop it from happening. From Dylan’s perspective, fate decided for him since nothing prevented it along the way. It was all too easy. This destructive destiny literally played into the boys’ hands with no parents, authority figures, friends or natural consequences putting the breaks on them.

And very cool for you! Turns out my niece is now planning to attend UoA and if that actually happens, then I’ll get to visit the campus. Ahh, fate. 😏

I thought when Dylan said that Zach was taking for granted his love, he was referring to love as Devon. Since he uses love as a noun often. He also has a point where he talks about people who take love for granted or destroy it. I just put two and two together and assumed in that context he meant Zach was taking Devon for granted.

Yes, it’s nebulous enough in the way Dylan words his sentence structure that it could also very well mean that he is referring to the fact that Zack now has this love in his life but he’s so used to having it now that he’s taking His Love (as a noun) for granted. This phrasing easily fits within the full context of his sentence too. 😊

Do you know how often Dylan wore his glasses (not the sunglasses)

We don’t really know to what extent he wore his prescription glasses. I feel as though he wore them quite regularly at home and after school during his sound design work for school plays when he was being low key with his casual theater classmates. Seems like he tried to avoid wearing them in school while in the hallways walking from class to class and socializing. It’s possible he had contacts but his mother never mentions them in her book so seems more likely he wore his glasses sparingly while in public and only when he really needed them.

keithpfeiffer:

WIP

A Mother’s Love detail.  

Holding on for dear life in his death..

Desperately a Mother grips on to the last vestiges of her once son that has seemingly vanished in her embraced. He is now but a phantom. His humanity swallowed up by the symbolism of his blacker-than-pitch trench coat; his weapons of destruction still primed in his death’s grip.  The son she once thought she knew, now turned “Monster”, the embodiment of Hate. A fallen angel lost in permanent disgrace; lost to his own raging battle cast back at the world out of acrimony, sadness, pain and despair.  She clings on to ‘him’ so hard, for dear life itself but her arms no longer encompass her beloved human son. Instead, her own being merges and melds inward, bleeding into the hollow blackness that once embodied him. The more she tightens and holds fast, his essence slips through her fingers, his head and facial features deleted, irrelevant, long but lost on that fateful, terrible day.   The one she’d loved, raised and known with great fondness all her life has slipped away into the night, right under her nose –  disappeared, vanquished for good.   His being, both the promise of humanity and goodness of spirit no longer of substance and all that remains is the symbol humanity will forever remember of that coal black trench coat poised for battle, arms

imperceptibly

lowered in surrender yet forever impervious and callously foreign to a mother’s love which can no longer save him. All that remains forever in this ignorant world’s perception is the evil personified of the ‘The Monster’ and the disgrace of a mother that seemingly allowed him to exist. How blind they all are. 

keithpfeiffer:

So I ended up doing a piece on a pretty dark subject: A review for Susan Klebold, mother of one of the columbine shooters, new book. It was pretty interesting to try to empathize with someone who loved and lost a monster.

 “loved and lost a monster her boy, her son..”

Achingly, hauntingly beautiful.  A mother’s unconditional instinct to love and hold on to her child no matter what he’s become.

Holding on for dear life in his death..

Desperately a Mother grips on to the last vestiges of her once son that has seemingly vanished in her embraced. He is now but a phantom. His humanity swallowed up by the symbolism of his blacker-than-pitch trench coat; his weapons of destruction still primed in his death’s grip.  The son she once thought she knew, now turned “Monster”, the embodiment of Hate. A fallen angel lost in permanent disgrace; lost to his own raging battle cast back at the world out of acrimony, sadness, pain and despair.  She clings on to ‘him’ so hard, for dear life itself but her arms no longer encompass her beloved human son. Instead, her own being merges and melds inward, bleeding into the hollow blackness that once embodied him. The more she tightens and holds fast, his essence slips through her fingers, his head and facial features deleted, irrelevant, long but lost on that fateful, terrible day.   The one she’d loved, raised and known with great fondness all her life has slipped away into the night, right under her nose –  disappeared, vanquished for good.   His being, both the promise of humanity and goodness of spirit no longer of substance and all that remains is the symbol humanity will forever remember of that coal black trench coat poised for battle, arms imperceptibly lowered in surrender yet forever impervious and callously foreign to a mother’s love which can no longer save him. All that remains forever in this ignorant world’s perception is the evil personified of the ‘The Monster’ and the disgrace of a mother that seemingly allowed him to exist. How blind they all are.

Why did Dylan think that Zach was “taking for granted his love?”

First, let’s look at this excerpt from 9/7/97 in the correct context.

My best friend has ditched me forever, lost in bettering himself and having, enjoying, taking for granted his love. I’ve never known this, not 100 times near this. They look at me [names removed ( Zack and Devon)] like I’m a stranger. I helped them both out through life and they left me in the abyss of suffering when I gave them a boost out.


What Dylan is saying is his best friend Zack has abandoned him for his girlfriend Devon.  Zack now has a special girl in his life, his soul mate (Dylan’s opinion) and she has helped him get a leg up in bettering the quality of his life So, Zack is no longer sad and depressed like he was before and is now enjoying his life without a care, without one glance back at Dylan – where as before, the two were on the same page in their friendship and struggles.  Dyl feels that Zack and Devon have it so good as a couple that that they are taking his love for granted.   He’d been there for them as that trusted confidant and friend that was there when they needed him but now the two are so tight and wrapped up in each other, he feels they are ignoring him, leaving him in the dust – taking his love and support as that loyal friend for granted.  He helped them – so why can’t they do the same for him?  Isn’t that the mutual love and loyalty expected of a friendship?  

In Sue’s book, she said Dylan initially took it hard when Devon entered the picture and usurped his best friendship with Zack.  Dylan was jealous of the fortune that Zack landed with a girlfriend around early to mid ‘97.  Sue also stated thatt as time went on, and Dylan and Devon got to know one another, they established a friendship too.

As Devon mentioned to Sue, Dylan was often that friend that Devon felt comfortable going to with her problems and unloading. Dylan was that good listener and “confidant” for her.  Probably unloading on him about her problems with Zack too. lol  He demonstrated his love and caring as a friend to her this way.   So, by the fall of ‘97 in this entry mentioned above, Dylan considers Zack still his best friend of all time who has ‘ditched’ him, and he still misses greatly the close connection they had for a time – but he also recognizes and considers Devon a friend too. He was there for both and helped them through troubles but he feels they have not done the same for him and he’s been ‘left in the abyss’ to suffer on his own.  

Good afternoon :) beautiful tumblr thank you for your patience & dedication . I have a question here , why was Dylan Wearing a hospital gown ? I would of thought the family would of brought in some personal clothing items ? What’s your take on this ?

Why was he in a hospital gown? Didn’t they let sue bring burial clothes? It’s not like they tried to save him and take him to the hospital.


Sue describes what Dylan’s body is as wearing as a “hospital gown” and it may have been just that or possibly a gown specifically used in the morgue. It’d be the sort of temporarily covering for the body used to make it presentable to family before it would typically be dressed up for a full on funeral. The ‘gown’ had short sleeves, as described in Sue’s book excerpt below, and fastened around the front of his body but probably never tied up along his back since there was no point to fasten it closed because he’d be cremated soon after. They probably also had a bit of a covering or blanket over the lower part of him but above, his bare arms were visible from the gown and crossed loosely over his abdomen. 

“No words are adequate to describe the pain of seeing Dylan’s body in that casket. The expression on Dylan’s face was unfamiliar, which Byron later confessed made it easier for him. That unfamiliar expression was perhaps the only thing that allowed us to get through that first, horrific, unreal moment. I smoothed Dylan’s hair and kissed his forehead, searching his face for
clues and finding none. Tom and I had brought a number of Dylan’s childhood stuffed animals, and we placed them in the coffin so they rested against his cheeks and neck. Byron and Tom and I held one another’s hands, and together we held Dylan’s. We were finally by his side, a family again.

It was a chilly spring day, and I was overcome by a compulsive, almost biological need to make Dylan warm. I could not stop rubbing his ice-cold arms, exposed by the short-sleeved hospital gown he was wearing. I had to hold myself back from climbing into the casket so I could cover him with the warmth of my body.  

Martha had recommended we each take some time alone with Dylan. Byron went first. As I waited in the main sitting room of the funeral home, I braced myself to be alone for the last time with what remained of my son, and I began to panic. A surge of animal protectiveness came over me. How could I allow Dylan to be destroyed, to be burned in a fire? I jumped out of my
chair and started to pace, my mind racing. The other options—above- and below-ground burial —brought me no comfort. I tried to think how we could steal his body out of the mortuary and sneak him to safety. I can’t do this, I thought over and over, in an endless loop. There was a fireplace in the funeral home’s sitting room. It looked cheerful and inviting on that cold, snowy
day, and I was drawn to it. Eventually, I was able to recover some calm by looking into the flames. Most of my panic turned to resignation, and then my grief resurfaced. How sad, I thought as I stared at the fire, that this is the way I must warm my son.”