The people rallied together and took apart the windows and numbered each piece. Then, families took the fragments and hid them within their homes. They tucked them away in sugar bowls and sock drawers. The chapel made it through the war unharmed, but visible still between the replaced fragments of the windows are the lines where the pieces were broken and then put back together.

Maybe the beauty now revealed in the light is that an entire community came together and restored the vision. Though flawed, I believe, it is stronger than ever.

In a way, each and every one of us is a piece of a Columbine community stained glass through which the sun shines bright and against which the wind blows cold. The piece we carry into our homes is made up of elements given to us by the literature which we read, the great teachers we learn from and the models we observe. It is a vision within us of which the totality is unknown until we die.

And in some ways our piece of the greater window is a stained window in itself made up of pieces from our own experiences. Our window is not unlike the first window of the Annunciation within the Chapel; it is made of pieces of glass given to us like messages to a child. It is our responsibility to accept those pieces. If we cherish them, we begin to create the pictures of our window and determine the colors and their hue.

For me, the "Iliad'' combined with the "Odyssey,'' as an examination of human civilization, is painted in a rich medieval blue, somewhere on my own window. Alongside it, decorated in deep, fragrant yellows and greens, are John Steinbeck's great works of literature: "Of Mice and Men'' and "Cannery Row'' - stories of simple human beings achieving great acts of love.

For all of us here, our teachers are often the greatest givers of the glass. For example, Mr. Sneddon and his vision for his students, which extends beyond the curriculum of earth science but encompasses life lessons. Skills he considers valuable that I now consider priceless! These are gifts if you open your heart. There's also Mrs. Sampson, who met a ram at the stock show with spiritual eyes and sees books as a thicket which one must subdue. I've never been a poet but with her guidance I've learned to live the poetry. Mr. Tonelli and his overflowing love and support for every single student who walks into his classroom; Mr. Andres, senior and junior, who have brought dedication to a Columbine tradition of music and have provided me with a personal melody for my past four years; and Mrs. Jankowski and the quilts we made in journalism just so she'd have a square of cloth to remember us by.

These are pieces that make up my window, which adds to the overall window of our Columbine community.

The models in my life: my mom as a teacher and Paula Reed as a coach and an encourager have added greatly to the colors that enhance my glass. I watch these women who bring grace and beauty to motherhood and I take those pieces and I hold on to them.

It is our job to hear the message and recognize the pieces. We are created by the choices we make. Our window can be vibrant in color and spirit, a collection of the gifts given to us by the people who surround us. Or our window can be blurred and colorless.

We must recognize the pieces, hear the message and create the window within us.

Because of what occured on April 20, I am beginning to see what my personal window must reflect in order to fit into the larger window. I must live life with a concentrated purpose and a dedication to each moment.

I must remember our friends who lost their lives, especially my friend Cassie Bernall. And as I wish that I had had more time, and more opportunities to tell her what she meant to me, I must remember what I have learned: to love deeply and appreciate every word and every gesture of each person I love or will love. So, now, we are being called upon particularly at this time to restore the vision - to take our numbered pieces and rebuild the window of our community. And though we have faced disasters of our own and our window may appear to have been shattered, we can achieve a greater beauty as we put the pieces back together again. Let the light shine through the stained glass, colored by this last four years, by these last four weeks. Like the people of Cambridge, let us recognize what is worthy to be saved, to be restored, and in unity rebuild the Columbine window from which others may draw their inspiration.

I remember moments in my life when I saw the golden experiences of yesterday fading and falling slowly like dead leaves from the branches of my mind onto the ground. A memory which had once been so pure and true simply turned to dust, and I forgot the sweet smell of my old room, I forgot what it felt like to run my hands through the thick fur of my old black-and-white dog, and when I thought about it, I realized that I could not remember the feeling I had on my very first day of school. All these moments I have had to ask parents about, and even when they said, "You were so excited,' I still cannot remember. In this way, I suppose Robert Frost was right in saying nothing gold can stay. Most of the golden moments of my childhood ran past so quickly, I simply forgot to remember them. However, there are other moments much greater in impact and magnitude that I do remember, and these instances seem to fully compensate for the loss of a few childhood moments. They are turning points in my life which I will play over and over again in my mind, and that is why I believe that everything which is truly precious and truly golden does stay.

When I was little and my eyes were new to the art of seeing, I wished to travel to the edge of the sky. I wanted to know what it was like where the misty blue joined with the golden fields. This I pondered countless times with the innocence of a 4-year-old looking out the car window at the rolling landscape, the tall grass waving in the wind like outstretched fingers reaching up to the heavens which lay above them. I always imagined what I would do when I got there, to the place where the earth and sky were stitched together like in a quilt. I would reach with my little hand and touch the blueness of it, I would look to see if the Earth simply stopped dead in its tracks. I would touch heaven and earth in one motion. Of course, my mother and father attempted explaining about such things as the roundness of the planet, and that we could never reach the edge of the sky because there was no edge of the sky. Convinced I was not. Vision was the only thing I knew, and I trusted as reality anything which passed under my two little eyes. Clearly, there was a place where the ground met up with the sky somewhere on the horizon. Clearly my mother and father were dreadfully mistaken. As I grew, I found out for myself that it was I who had made the mistake. I saw my golden vision of heaven and earth joined together with Elmer's glue vanish from my sight, never to be reality again. I only just recalled this theory about the world recently, wishing that heaven and earth could be joined as one, and I have to smile at the memory. For even if the pureness of the reality has departed in me, and even if I see that there clearly is no edge of the sky I retain within me the golden memory of what it felt like to imagine a place so wonderful and so mysterious. That piece of gold did stay.

There is another that I think of also. I remember that my grandma had been ill for some time, struggling with the cancer that had invaded her body. As the sun was setting on another June day, the phone rang, and the voice on the other end announced that the sun would also be setting on my grandmother's life. It was like a blow to the head - a sense of fear, panic, and sadness set in all at once, overloading my young mind. Thus I discovered mortality with the passing of a great and noble heart. My parents spoke of memories: "We will always remember who she was.'' That night I sat in bed with tear-stained sheets, and I searched my mind for all the experiences with her that I could remember, I found many, but to this day I only vividly remember one. Today I struggle to remember every single visit to grandma's house and I don't even remember what her skin felt like to touch. There is a photograph of us in an album though. We are smiling, laughing, and it shows me that we were all happy at one time, and that we were all there together. I don't remember posing for the picture. My one shining memory of my grandmother comes from another source other than photographs. I remember her dancing. lt was at their 50th wedding anniversary, and everyone was outside except grandma, Aunt Christy and myself. The only sound was the Spanish music that drifted through our minds. The two, mother and daughter, were in the corner speaking softly to each other when, without warning, they both rose from their seats as a new song came on. Both of them drifted to the center of the room, and Christy took Grandma's frail hands in hers, and they began dancing, sliding slowly across the floor. Grandma sang along in Spanish, and so did Christy. They were both so enraptured by the sweet melody that tears glistened in their eyes. I thought to myself that perhaps Grandma had sung this song to Christy when they were both years younger, and they were remembering a moment long lost by the passage of time. . . I remember the way Grandma's lips moved as she sang along, I remember the expression on her face as she seemed to be wishing for a time when she sang with a younger voice and danced with a younger step. Even though they are both gone from this world, I will always have the shining memory of them singing, spinning, dancing as the music swirls all around them. That piece of gold has stayed also.

I remember the night in London when we all sat in our room with Lauren eating pizza and fixing each others' hair for a night out on the town. We had a terrible case of the giggles and we laughed until our stomachs hurt. I'll cherish that memory forever. I remember meeting Isaiah for the first time when Mr. Tonelli introduced him to our economics class. Isaiah had been walking down the hall and Tonelli pulled him into our class and said, "this is Isaiah and he is an awesome person.' I will value that experience as well. If we remember them all then they can never leave us. Never let them go. They are waiting for us in that realm of pure blue, that mysterious place where the earth meets the sky. Those pieces of gold will stay forever.

So, I prefer to take the lines of Wordsworth into my heart because he emphasizes that we experience to remember, and our memories bring us comfort. His bright memory was a field of daffodils, and in his poem he stores up bouquets of his soul to recall and brighten his heart:

Thus the most comfort comes from those few pieces of gold which are truly valuable, and our minds find solace with the sweet remembrance of our experiences. Into this world I will depart, dancing with my Grandmother, laughing with Lauren and Isaiah, and always searching for the edge of the sky. Yes, everything gold can stay.