Devon Adam's message for Columbine Anniversary 2015

This was originally posted on a public Facebook page:
Devon Adams, 4/20/2015

Hey all, I wanted to make a request. Tomorrow, April 20th, is the 16th anniversary of the shootings at Columbine High School. For a lot of survivors, tomorrow marks the point where we have lived half of our life Before and half After. All of the anniversaries are hard, but this one has a certain weight to it.

So, the request: tomorrow, if you would, please make an extra effort to be kind. I know that we all can get mired down by negativity and focusing on the crummy little things of daily life. Its easy. But life is scarily, shockingly short. And I have three friends who no longer have the luxury of being grumpy about the guy tailgating them or that their food took too long at a restaurant. More importantly, they can no longer laugh or cry or gaze in wonder at the mountains or catch a snowflake on their tongued or hug those they love.

There is so much fear and hatred and vitriol in the world, and for just one day, it would be beautiful if we blotted all of that out with an excess of kindness.

16 years ago I didn’t take the time to tell a friend what he meant to me. Blame it on being shy or a teenager or selfish. But now I don’t have that chance. No one needs the kind of regret that comes from not taking the chance at love, no matter how small.

Maybe it’s as small as making eye contact and smiling at a stranger. Or letting another car in as you merge onto the highway. Or calling that friend who you’ve been meaning to call. Anything. Because the best way to honor those lives lost 16 years ago, and those forever changed, is not to dwell on the horror of that day, but to flood the world with love in hopes that we can change things for the better.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” - Martin Luther King Jr

Peace and love.

PaintItBlack wrote:

16 years ago I didn’t take the time to tell a friend what he meant to me. Blame it on being shy or a teenager or selfish. But now I don’t have that chance. No one needs the kind of regret that comes from not taking the chance at love, no matter how small.

This whole thing is really sad but that bolded part really puzzles me. I know Devon has said one of her biggest regrets was not telling Dylan how much he meant to her and another was not going to his funeral. This sounds like her feelings were deeper than friendship. If that's the case this is even more excruciatingly sad.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
Most people have taken that statement as Devon confessing that she had romantic feelings for Dylan that she wishes she had confessed to him before he died.
I have long heard that regarding her and it is hard to read it any other way, but she has never come out and explicitly said that anywhere that I am aware of.

It would be interesting to get her on this forum for a Q and A. I'd like to know a bit more about DK and I'm sure she can shed a whole new light on him. While Yumeko-chan is great for a bunch of info on what happened in the library I would like to know a bit more about him before that day.

I always assumed that it was Devon who wrote the letter to the creator of King of the Hill.

I don't think you slow-dance at Prom to "Take My Breath Away" with someone you don't have some sort of feelings for. There are accounts of her playing flag football with Dylan and a large group of other kids, and when she cut her leg, he called a time-out on the whole game. And when her car was hit at an interesection he was really protective of her too. I definitely can see how she could have developed feelings for him because of how kind he was to her, and always being there for her to talk to.

@Juicy Jazzy I have thought of that too, but when Mike Judge mentioned it he said that the person who wrote to him felt like it was wrong to grieve for whichever shooter she loved. I don't remember Devon talking about any difficulty like that.

Devon Adams is also the only one that knew them before they died that I am aware of that has come out and said she has had a few vivid encounters with the spirit of Dylan.
Everyone has their own beliefs but as I do not believe that the souls of the dead ever return to Earth or can ever be contacted I think there are other explanations for whatever she may have experienced.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
I agree that it would be very interesting to have a question and answer with Devon here but I seriously doubt that she would be interested in doing such a thing.
Amanda came here on her own and Devon only seems to like talking about Columbine periodically over large periods of time which of course is fine and her right.

Where are the stories about Devon's paranormal encounters with Dylan?

@lastrain,
I am sorry that I cannot remember exactly where they were.
I read these stories some years ago.


Here is what I was able to find on google:

May 12, 2011 Personal Ghost Stories on WordPress

One of the shooters was a friend of mine

When I was in high school we had a major school shooting my sophomore year (Columbine).One of the shooters was a friend of mine and the sound designer for our theatre. The year after the shooting I was the technical director for the theatre and was the only student with a key to the space. I would go in there just to sit and think or do homework during my off hour. One day I had a really awful day with people just being creeps and went into the theatre to work on some stuff when I heard footsteps on our catwalk. The only access to the catwalk is a door in the outside hallway with only 4 existing keys (I had one, 2 teachers and the janitor had the others). Also, it is a physical impossibility to get on the catwalk without turning on the lights (which you need a key to do ; to prevent students from possibly getting up there during shows). It only lasted a minute, so I thought it was my imagination. Then it started again, louder and faster. I called out, and the footsteps stopped. All of a sudden the stage lights blared on (the booth was locked, no one was in it, and the board was off) I called out my friend's name and the lights turned off, and I didn't hear anything else. There was another time when this guy's ex best friend (Zach Heckler) and I were driving down from the mountains going really fast, when a black BMW like the one this guy used to drive zoomed by us, then pulled in front of us and slowed down, making us slow down as well. No matter what we did we could not pass him, speed up, or see who it was. In about 10 minutes we hit a freak snow storm, and would have spun out if we were going faster. Just after we went thru, there was a 25-car pile up. We didn't see the BMW after getting thru the storm.
Freaky weird. And true. And stuff like that kept happening.

I wonder what Devon thought of Robyn and vice versa. Both girls were very close female friends of Dylan. Both spend a lot of time with him. Both build strong relationships with him. Did they ever talk? How did Devon react when she found out that Robyn supplied the boys with guns?

PaintItBlack wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.],
Most people have taken that statement as Devon confessing that she had romantic feelings for Dylan that she wishes she had confessed to him before he died.
I have long heard that regarding her and it is hard to read it any other way, but she has never come out and explicitly said that anywhere that I am aware of.

I don't blame her for not outright stating it. I'd imagine there must be some amount of shame for loving one of histories most infamous school shooters. Reading Dylan's journal writings for the first time, especially the part were he says he'd like to kill her, must have been really tough on her. If she really did love Dylan then the whole situation becomes that much sadder.

Do you think her having feelings for Dylan would have mattered toward the end? He obviously felt betrayed by both Devon and Zach once they started dating. His bitterness kicked his urge to die into overdrive. It really shows his extreme codependency. I'm not sure Dylan was ever mature enough to truly understand love. He treated love as a band-aid that would cure his self esteem issues and depression. He didnt seem like he wanted to give love so much as receive it. Do you think he would have ever allowed someone who had "betrayed" him to then be that cure? Would have been willing to try with her even knowing about her and Zacks past? They seem to have been good friends towards the end, but Dylan was faking a lot by that point.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], I don't know if Dylan could fake a whole friendship with someone. Feelings and thoughts about people do change, and perceived and real slights are forgiven. As for him writing that he "wouldn't mind killing" her in his journal, I can attest that I have written many things in my private journals which were extreme exaggerations of however I was feeling. This is common to do. Add this to the fact that Dylan was often drunk or can safely be assumed to have been when he wrote much of his journal, plus the fact that he befriended Devon later, and we can take this statement with a grain of salt.

You brought up a very good point her about possibly feeling ashamed if she was in love with him. I think there might be another reason. Wasn't she still dating Zach at the time of Prom and the shootings? I think perhaps if she was in love with Dylan she hasn't outright admitted it not just because she's ashamed to admit she loved someone who did such a thing, but maybe she's ashamed of having harbored feelings for him - and possibly planning to act on them, even if only by verbally expressing them - when she was dating someone else and had been for a while. If she's still friends with Zach or anyone they were close to in high school she might not want to cause a rift of some sort.