Life in Kyle's shadow

By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

Kyle Albert Velasquez was thrilled to see another kid he knew when his mom dropped him off for first grade.

The special-needs boy bolted out of the car, grinned at his classmate and offered a friendly, "Hi." The boy ignored Kyle.

Phyllis Velasquez watched and wept quietly as her son suffered the sting of cruelty. As the years passed, Kyle became accustomed to such rebukes, but she never did.

Kyle had suffered a stroke at birth that left him with an array of learning disabilites. Other kids sometimes tormented him. So did some adults. His mother recalls one neighbor who refused to let his child play with Kyle, as if his disabilites would rub off.

Kyle knew what it felt like to be an outcast.

Yet, at age 16, he remained a sweet, strapping, 6-foot sophomore who told his mom every day that he loved her and always kissed her on the cheek.

Until April 20, when he died at Columbine High School.

His killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, complained that they were the targets of teasing at school. But they knew nothing of the taunts and struggles Kyle Velasquez endured daily.

With brutal detachment, Harris and Klebold shot him as he worked on the computer during his lunch break. He was the first of 10 students killed in the library.

Of the 13 who died that day, Kyle is one of the least known.

At first, his parents grieved for him in a cocoon of privacy. But as the months passed, they began to worry that Kyle would become the tragedy's unknown victim.

"People need to know as much about our child as we know about Klebold and Harris," Phyllis said.

"I don't want Kyle to be forgotten," said Al Velasquez, his father.

Always together

Kyle had been at Columbine High for three months when he died.

He thrived in their special-education program after struggling for years in school.

"He was finding out who Kyle was and liking Kyle," his mother said. "Columbine felt safe."

Only weeks before his death, Kyle had started staying through lunch. It was a benchmark, a privilege he prized in his drive to live as normal a life as possible.

Otherwise, he would have been safely on his way home at 11:10 a.m., minutes before seniors Harris and Klebold unleashed their terror.

On April 20, Kyle quickly ate his lunch, then raced to the computers he loved in the school library. He planned to hang around there for the rest of his lunch hour, then go to communications, the first class he was taking with mainstream Columbine students.

But Harris and Klebold burst into the library loaded with firepower and snuffed his dreams.

Kyle's death scarred the souls of his parents and his brother, Daniel, 22. Unlike most teen-agers, Kyle hung out with his folks, not friends. Kyle's mom and dad planned to live with him forever.

Phyllis always worried about who would take care of Kyle once she and her husband were gone. Kyle was their mission and they were his support system.

Now, they must find a new life.

"The day there was no Kyle was the day I lost who I was," Phyllis said.

Kyle always did the grocery shopping with his mom. And every few weeks, they would go together to the library to stock up on new books.

She no longer visits the library. It's too painful. And the first time she walked into Albertson's alone, the grief nearly paralyzed her.

Al desperately misses the boy who loved the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and would thoughtfully videotape sports events while his dad was working swing shifts on the bottling line at Coors Brewing. Father and son often spent Saturday nights watching those taped ballgames or their favorite flick, Top Gun.

"God gave him to us because he knew we would do everything in our power for him," Phyllis Velasquez said. "He was truly a special gift."

Struggles at school

Kyle was born May 5, 1982. Al's mother delighted in the day Kyle chose for his debut -- Cinco de Mayo, the Mexican holiday commemorating the 1862 victory over French invaders.

Al is Mexican American. Phyllis has Irish, German and Indian roots. Kyle was a photogenic blend of the two. From the start, he was a dark-haired, dark-eyed charmer.

But worries gnawed at Phyllis.

Kyle was so different from his older brother. He was slow to roll over, crawl and walk. He barely spoke, except to say, Mama, Daddy and Tuffy, his first cat's name.

Phyllis confided her worries to their pediatrician, but the doctor thought Kyle was fine.

Then he missed more milestones. And another checkup produced an alarming diagnosis -- Kyle was severely mentally retarded.

"I knew that wasn't right either. It was a mom thing," Phyllis said.

Finally, they found a specialist at Children's Hospital who determined the boy had suffered a stroke at birth. The diagnosis explained Kyle's difficulty with speech, coordination and memory. He also had severe asthma.

Once the Velasquezes had the proper diagnosis, they had a new mission: helping Kyle develop and learn as much as he could.

They sent him to preschool at their neighborhood school in Jefferson County. But school scared him. He would panic if he didn't understand what was going on and withdraw. Sometimes, he would flee, running to get away or trying to find his older brother. "He wanted safety," Phyllis said.

"He knew he had problems. But he wanted to be like everyone else," Phyllis said.

Doctors told his parents that Kyle needed to be confined and get lots of individual attention. But the Velasquezes struggled to find a school with a program like that. Jefferson County offered two choices: classes with severely mentally retarded students or classes with regular kids.

Kyle had difficulty until third grade, when his parents found a special program at Colorow Elementary School and teacher Marta Dowell.

Kyle started to learn to read, write and do some math.

"He was just a really sweet kid. He didn't want to hurt anybody," Dowell said. "He was so gentle. At first, he was afraid at school. Once he realized we were going to help him learn, he stayed at school. He was a dear."

But by the sixth grade, Kyle was having discipline problems again. Phyllis had to quit her job at a doctor's office because she kept getting calls at work to go get Kyle.

"I truly felt that I was taking my head and hitting a brick wall," she said.

Marilyn Saltzman, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County schools, declined to discuss Kyle's educational problems.

High school was even worse. In ninth grade, Kyle enrolled at Chatfield. His parents kept telling administrators that Kyle needed a special program, but they were told there wasn't one.

School officials put Kyle into mainstream classes, his parents said. And like regular high school kids, Kyle had open campus privileges and no special help, a recipe for disaster, his parents feared.

He could roam at will and did.

Some kids befriended him, and his parents believe they prodded Kyle into mischief for their amusement. Once, he made a 911 call and yelled obscenities at the operator.

Then, just weeks into the school year, Kyle set his gym shirt on fire at school. He was expelled and police charged him with arson. He completed community service and paid a fine to wipe the charges off his record.

School officials also made a call to social services. Workers there told the Velasquezes they had better find a day treatment program for Kyle or they would take him away.

The Velasquezes find it ironic that Kyle got expelled while Harris and Klebold got counseling after getting caught burglarizing a van.

The Columbine killers became progressively more troubled after their brush with the law. Kyle embarked on a better course.

"He ended up having to get into trouble to get what he needed," Al said.

An empty chair

Kyle started his sophomore year last fall at West Pines at Lutheran Hospital, a program in Wheat Ridge for troubled kids. While he still only tested at the third- or fourth-grade level academically, he thrived there.

Halfway through the school year, West Pines lost its funding, and the Velasquezes once again had to find another place for Kyle.

Chatfield administrators made it clear they didn't want him back. District officials suggested he learn a vocation, like construction, the Velasquezes said.

With the help of an advocate from the Association for Retarded Children, the Velasquezes found a program at Columbine. It seemed like a perfect fit.

He started in January, a couple of weeks into the second semester. He had great teachers and he looked forward to the privileges and independence of being back at high school.

He couldn't wait to go on a field trip downtown with his communications class April 23. In the past, he had always been left home during such outings.

"His family always called him a gentle giant, and he really was. Kyle was Kyle. We just loved him," said Tim Capra, Kyle's math teacher.

Almost every day before class started Kyle would come in early and write a riddle on the board.

One read, "I touch my face with my hands and search for the number 13, but never find it. What am I?"

"We would go nuts figuring out these riddles. He would just sit there and smile," Capra said.

The answer: a clock.

"We never had a negative experience with Kyle. I don't care what happened to him in the past. When he was with us, he was happy and he liked school."

Kyle made friends and loved surfing the Web on the computer. He did research projects using the Internet for Martin's class. He did more than the assignment required and kept doing his computer research long after he turned in the paper, said Rudy Martin, who taught Kyle vocational education and career development.

Despite his short stay at Columbine, Kyle is greatly missed.

"We've kind of kept Kyle's chair open. Nobody will sit in it out of respect to Kyle," Martin said.

Last words: 'Love you, Mom'

Every morning, Phyllis would get up and make Kyle breakfast. But he wanted his independence. He kept insisting he could do it himself.

So finally, on the morning of April 20, Phyllis succumbed. She stayed in bed while Kyle rattled around in the kitchen.

"He came up and said, 'Goodbye. Love you, Mom."'

"Love you, too. See you," she answered.

Then he left. Forever.

Al was home mowing the grass when a neighbor told him about the shootings.

He picked up Phyllis from her job at Mervyn's department store.

When Al told his wife about the shooting, she had a terrible premonition.

"I just knew right then I was never seeing Kyle again. It was one of those mom things."

The Velasquezes and their relatives spent more than eight hours at Leawood Elementary awaiting news. Buses filled with kids evacuated from Columbine kept arriving, but Kyle wasn't on them. The Velasquezes found themselves among a shrinking group of distraught parents with no answers and no child.

Defeated, they went home and waited for the dreadful news that came the next day.

Dreams become nightmares

Instead, he got a Mile High salute at his funeral from his uncle, who told the mourners how much Kyle had loved the Broncos.

Because of his father's military service, Kyle was buried with honors in a flag-draped casket at Fort Logan National Cemetery.

Buried next to Kyle is fellow Columbine victim Steven Curnow. Two pines stand sentinel over the white marble headstones of boys who died younger than soldiers in a place that wasn't supposed to be a war zone.

The fact that Kyle died at school will always haunt his family.

"I spent my entire life thinking I could keep him safe," said Phyllis. "The one thing happened that I never imagined happening in an unimaginable place."

Both of Kyle's parents are growing progressively angrier. Al is devastated because he couldn't protect his son.

Phyllis has nightmares in which Kyle is in trouble and she can't reach him.

The two feel they must protect Kyle in death.

When church members at the West Bowles Community Church planted 15 trees in September to honor both the families of the killers and their victims, Al took action. He protested at the church and sawed down one of the trees.

Al understands that many people disagreed with their decision, but he said he had to follow his heart and give his son dignity in death.

There have been other occasions when the countless Columbine meetings and events have left the Velasquezes reeling. They felt that they were being coddled so much that Al had a baseball cap made that read, "I'm Grieving, not Stupid."

When Columbine school officials decided to reopen the library with only cosmetic changes, Al and Phyllis were irate.

"People say the families need to move on. How dare we say what happens to the library," Phyllis recalled. "It's very hurtful.

"I would love to get a life. That's not so easy when you're the person who's trying to move on. He was with us all the time."

The first day of school broke the Velasquezes' hearts. There was no mention of the slaying victims, no moment of silence. Nothing, but cheerleaders chanting, "We are Columbine."

What about Kyle? they asked. What about all the others: Steven Curnow, Cassie Bernall, Corey DePooter, Kelly Fleming and Matthew Kechter, Daniel Mauser, Daniel Rohrbough, Dave Sanders, Rachel Scott, Isaiah Shoels, John Tomlin and Lauren Townsend?

Saltzman, the school district spokeswoman, said Columbine administrators made sure to include a moment of silence in honor of the dead at homecoming.

"We realize how difficult this time must be," she said. "They suffered an indescribable loss and our hearts go out to them. We want to work with them in any way we can."

Heartbreaking mementos

Their home has become a shrine to him. Stickers with his name on them adorn the mailbox and the cars. They've also made T-shirts with a columbine flower design in memory of Kyle.

There are photos of him with his hero John Elway. In another, he sports a sombrero as a child. And there are many of him with Daniel, his much admired older brother and best buddy.

In their well-tended back yard, guardian angels watch over a stone bench near a tree Kyle used to love climbing.

Michelangelo, the cat Kyle named after one his beloved Ninja Turtles, sleeps next to a pillow with the boy's picture on it.

It took months to get back the glasses and watch Kyle wore the day of the shooting. Phyllis carried the watch with her for weeks before she realized that it still had a tiny speck of her son's blood. She can't bear to wash it off. Gruesome or not, it's still a part of him.

They also got Kyle's notebook back. In it, they found a sweet note he had doodled for his brother: "Goodnight Daniel. Love you. XOXOXO Kyle."

Under her pillow, Phyllis keeps the T-shirt Kyle was wearing the day before he died. It still holds his scent and as long as it does, it helps keep his spirit alive.

The Velasquezes often feel Kyle's presence.

One night, in a dream, Kyle came to his mother.

"He bent down and let me hug him," Phyllis recalled. "I said, 'Son, do you know how much I miss you?' and he said, 'Yes."'

In June, she was cleaning out the linen closet when she happened upon stacks of Kyle's special things: The stuffed musical bunny he always slept with, the baby blanket she had made for him, his first shoes.

Phyllis wept and wept. Grieving is a punishingly slow process. And the Velasquezes never know when sadness will overtake them.

But they take heart in the mementos that remind them of their lost son. Among them is a Mother's Day card he had made in grade school.

The message is especially poignant now.

"You are the special one and I love you," Kyle wrote.

On the front, he drew a picture of a Ninja Turtle.

The turtle is wearing a T-shirt with a simple message: "No Fear."

Phyllis and Al hope it applies to their son now.

"I know that Kyle's OK. I know Kyle's safe. I miss him," said Phyllis. "Kyle's in God's hands now. Somehow, we have to keep living without him."