In this second installment of the Children First Family Law podcast’s four-part series on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), Krista welcomes her longtime friend Chris Markham. Chris opens up about his childhood in a family affected by divorce, emotional disconnection, and abuse. He also reflects on the devastating day he survived the Columbine High School shooting as a freshman, bringing to light the profound ways trauma can shape a child’s life. His willingness to share these experiences provides an intimate glimpse into how ACEs manifest in real families.
Chris recounts how parental alienation, strict limitations on contact with his father, and the instability of living with a mother struggling with substance abuse compounded the trauma of his early years. Physical abuse at the hands of a stepfather further deepened the challenges he faced. These experiences left him with a constant sense of disconnection and a drive to seek out healthier role models and mentors who could help him imagine a different future.
Despite the weight of these adversities, Chris discovered strength in discipline and community. Through martial arts, mentorship, and his own determination, he cultivated resilience that carried him beyond the instability of his upbringing. The discipline he adopted helped him counter destructive patterns and provided him with the tools to process his pain in constructive ways. His story demonstrates the critical role that supportive adults and structured environments play in helping children heal from trauma.
Today, Chris is a husband and father committed to building a stable and loving home for his family. He speaks candidly about how his past fuels his desire to break cycles of generational trauma and to model healthier relationships for his children. His journey illustrates both the risks of ACEs and the hope that comes from resilience, making this conversation an important listen for parents, professionals, and anyone striving to support children through adversity.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Growing up with divorce, emotional disconnection, and abuse in the home
- The reality of surviving the Columbine High School shooting as a freshman
- Parental alienation and its impact on a child’s relationship with both parents
- The role of substance abuse and unstable environments in shaping childhood trauma
- Physical abuse from a stepfather and the long-lasting effects of violence in the home
- How discipline and martial arts created structure and stability amid chaos
- Mentors and supportive adults stepping in when family life fell apart
- Building resilience by turning pain into strength and determination
- The ongoing work of breaking cycles of generational trauma
- Creating a healthier family legacy through fatherhood and committed relationships
Resources from this Episode
www.cdc.gov/aces/about/index.html
my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/24875-adverse-childhood-experiences-ace
www.apaf.org/our-programs/justice/free-resources/what-are-aces
www.samhsa.gov/resource/sptac/adverse-childhood-experiences-role-substance-misuse-prevention
www.childrenfirstfamilylaw.com
All states have different laws; be sure you are checking out your state laws specifically surrounding divorce. Krista is a licensed attorney in Colorado and Wyoming but is not providing through this podcast legal advice. Please be sure to seek independent legal counsel in your area for your specific situation.
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ACEs, Trauma, and Hope: Understanding Childhood Pain and Building Resilience – Part 2 of a 4-Part Series Podcast Transcript
Chris Markham 00:00
I knew I had to have something more with myself, because it felt like I was meant for more. And in my heart, I wanted to have more. I wanted to have better. Because I would look around at some of the kids that grew up in families that weren’t divorced, and, , had a bit more of a family home structure, and at least appearing from the outside and looking in they didn’t look like their parents were substance abusers, right? Or they never really showed that they had financial struggles or any of those other situations, right? Or they weren’t experiencing a tragedy firsthand, like Columbine, like my high school sweetheart’s family, and it was night and day difference of seeing how that would model it. And I think , part of that post Columbine situation too, her and her family, it was a big, monumental piece in my life of shaping who I am today.
Intro/Outro 01:00
Welcome to the Children First Family Law podcast. Our host Krista. Nash is an attorney, mediator, parenting coordinator and child advocate with a heart to facilitate conversations about how to help children flourish amidst the broken area of family law. As a child advocate in demand for her expertise throughout Colorado and as a speaker on these issues at a national level, Krista is passionate about facilitating and creatively finding solutions to approach family law matters in a way that truly focuses on the best interests of kids. Please remember, this podcast is provided to you for information purposes only. No one on this podcast is representing you or giving you legal advice. As always, please enjoy this episode and be sure to like, subscribe, and share the podcast with others you think would benefit from this content.
Krista Nash 01:50
Hi everyone. Welcome back to The Children First Family Law podcast where we put the focus where it belongs on kids. I’m your host. Krista Nash, this episode is part two of our four part series on adverse childhood experiences, also known as aces. If you joined us for part one, you heard Dr Kathleen McNamara share the science of ACEs and the ways these early experiences can shape a child’s life. Today, we move from research to lived reality. You’re going to meet Chris Markham, whose story brings aces into sharp focus. Chris grew up in a family marked by divorce, emotional disconnection and abuse. He was also a student at Columbine High School in the school shooting, and was in the cafeteria on the day that all went down. This conversation is raw, real and unforgettable. Chris’s story sheds light on the hidden scars children carry when they grow up with trauma, including the trauma of divorce and the courage it takes just to survive. Let’s begin part two, living through aces. Hi everyone. Welcome back to The Children First Family Law Podcast. I’m very excited to have a very old friend of mine and someone who is going to share a very personal story with you all today. His name is Chris Markham, Chris, welcome. I’m glad you’re here. We’ve been talking about doing this for a while. Chris can tell the story of how we met here in a minute. But as I shared in the introduction, I’ve been wanting to have somebody on who really embodies resilience through adverse childhood experiences or despite adverse childhood experiences. And I know that Chris’s personal story involves divorce, but also being present and part of the tragedy at the Columbine High School shooting, which is just an incredible, impactful story. I know that he’s actually landed on his feet and is an amazing dad and husband. I was at his wedding. I’ve gotten to see him live through a lot of this. And so Chris, thank you for sharing your story today. I hope it’s an encouragement to people. So let’s just get it out of the way. Go ahead and tell everybody how we met.
Chris Markham 03:58
Ah, so we met. I was a personal trainer at 24 hour fitness, back in 24 hour fitness heyday, and you came in looking for a trainer.
Krista Nash 04:08
Be careful not to bash me here.
Chris Markham 04:12
You were really looking for someone to whip you into shape.
Krista Nash 04:25
I mean, I went home crying hard after the first day, and I was like, I hate this guy.
Chris Markham 04:29
Let’s calibrate some of the listeners and readers here. This is after you’ve had four children with three pregnancies.
Krista Nash 04:37
I just told Chris, as we started that the day we’re recording this. My youngest kids are twins. Today is their 21st birthday. So we were, whoa, we are old because I would drag those four little kids, my little ducklings to the gym with me. And I guess the boys were maybe two, or something like that. They were little.
Chris Markham 04:54
I remember you coming in like a mama duck, and the kids were all single file behind you. You took the kids to the kids club, and you’re like, I’m getting changed. Don’t start without me. I was like, I can’t start without you.
Krista Nash 05:05
And then the first day he, like, we did this horrible thing across the big gymnasium where he made me do these, I don’t even know what. Wait, actually, I do. They’re lunges, holding weights, and perfect practice makes perfect. Do it again.
Chris Markham 05:19
Do it again. Start over.
Krista Nash 05:23
I went and I told my husband, and my husband, I don’t want to do this. And my husband said, sounds like he’s a really good trainer. Why don’t you train for a long time? We got really integrated. We were really fit.
Chris Markham 05:37
Back then, both of us were very fit, and you got extremely fit. I think I hadn’t had a client take that dedication to the level that you did. I mean, I think you even got, at the time it was the Body Bug calorie app that needed a laptop. So you went and bought a whole nother computer on top of buying sessions and membership and the body bug and getting ready to prep for workouts, to getting another laptop so that you could track your nutrition.
Krista Nash 06:05
It was crazy.
Chris Markham 06:07
I mean, it was, I think it’s average accuracy at the time was 96%.
Krista Nash 06:13
I was literally not even in law school then.
Chris Markham 06:16
No, you weren’t. And it was, you were like, I’m doing this gung ho, and I just remember how quick your results came.
Krista Nash 06:24
I need to do that again, man. I mean, I kind of, I’m kind of barely doing it now.,
Chris Markham 06:29
I think part of that toughness and everything else, I think it made us connect deeper, and that’s kind of why we’ve had this friendship too.
Krista Nash 06:38
Yes, we did. My husband would always say, I don’t know how you’re getting fit, because all you do is talk with this guy. Like, quit talking so much. Why don’t you just lift? I was always like, Chris, tell me about your life.
Chris Markham 06:52
You were trying to pour into me, and you did, and brought me to church and Christ, and you were a major influence of that in my life, and so was your husband, Judd, in a massive, massive, way.
Krista Nash 07:05
I appreciate that so much. We had a lot of conversations about starving people in Africa, and how God is with them, and this kind of stuff. It was that kind of relationship. But I don’t know. I think you’re working out several times a week. I don’t know you really helped me in my life. It was really helping me meet goals. And I remember, I was almost 30, and I was like, oh my gosh, I’m almost 30. No wait, I was almost 40, and I’m like, I’m almost 40, and you’re like, quit rushing it, you’re not 40 yet. And it just was a really special and it still is, but it was a really special time and relationship. And you helped me do things I never thought I could do, like stand on those crazy bosu balls.
Chris Markham 07:40
You were standing on those giant physio balls doing the craziest X curls and shoulder presses and twist rotations, and
Krista Nash 07:49
I almost fell a couple times, and, like, almost broke both my legs.
Chris Markham 07:54
You’re probably one of the strongest pound for pound clients I’ve ever appreciated.
Krista Nash 07:58
I also remember that you were like, we need to get you on an ad for 24 Hour Fitness Fitness with all your little kids around this big ball you’re standing on and I’m like, I’m not doing it unless they pay me, which they wouldn’t do. So, they missed out. So enough about that, but it’s a kind of funny story, and I always want to be real and human and share my own stuff with people. So, that’s how we met, and I remember you talking about your own family and your own childhood, and your parents being divorced when you were really, really little. And then I do remember also, you showing me that you, like we started talking about Columbine High School, which was around the corner, really, from where we were working out. And I was in California working when Columbine happened, and you were what, year in school, freshman? Freshman in school. And, we’ll get into that more. But I mean, Chris literally has scars on his arms from the shrapnel, and so he was really there and in it. So, let’s get started, though, talking about your parents. So you were little. You just told me, as we were prepping, that you were two years old, when your parents separated, and about four when they divorced.
Chris Markham 09:00
It was around my birthday. I remember it was kind of an awkward birthday. On my fourth birthday, we were at a Fun Plex place there.
Krista Nash 09:08
Aren’t you a February birthday? So we’re talking,
Chris Markham 09:11
I think it was around Valentine’s Day they got divorced. But I just remember how awkward that was when I wanted my dad to stay for my birthday, but he, I remember him telling me he can’t and I was like, I didn’t understand it. And I was like, Mom, can you stay? Can you say? And she didn’t even respond to me, and just went about trying to get the party moving along. And my dad just said he kneeled down, got down, gave me a big hug, kiss, and said he had to go.
Krista Nash 09:43
So you were turning four? That’s a pretty early memory for a little kid. Just that you remember that pretty poignantly.
Chris Markham 09:50
I do, actually, because it was my dad. He did stay for a little bit. He gave me my first baseball glove and a bat on that birthday. It was the first time I got a real official baseball glove and bat, and I just remember, we’re trying to do the putt, putt golfing and stuff. And I was like, stay, stay. And he’s like, I can’t stay for the whole party. And I was just like, why? And he’s like, you’ll understand probably when you get older. But he was just like, I can’t tell you either. And it was just awkward. And it was one of those things that I found out as I got older, that it was my mom kind of pushing him out and holding him at bay, and keeping him at that distance and not allowing him to partake in some of those things.
Krista Nash 10:36
And you were, you had one older sister, right? How much older was she?
Chris Markham
Two years older.
Krista Nash
Okay, so what other early memories do you have, then, of the divorce situation?
Chris Markham 10:50
I have. I remember just, like, really strict guidelines of when I could see him. I remember my mom telling me, too. It’s just funny. Remember my mom telling me, like, if I ever saw dad, my dad, like, trying to talk to me at school or pick me up early or anything like that, don’t go with him, and to, like, talk to her or tell a teacher or something, and to let her know if my dad came by.
Krista Nash 11:16
Was it a domestic violence situation?
Chris Markham 11:19
Uh, no, there’s no proof of that, but my mom says that. But my dad says no.
Krista Nash 11:25
And did you ever, do you have any memories, or if your sister does of actually seeing any of that?
Chris Markham 11:30
No. And yet, another weird thing too is like, if you’ve ever met my dad, the guy is a gentle giant. He is a calm, calm guy, and I’m not, I’m high energy, buzzing personal trainer out there, like, in your face intense.
Krista Nash 11:46
And now I’m gonna say too, that you’ve transitioned to be this big dog executive at a major company, which is also very cool. So just that you’re not still personal training, even though that’s a very valuable job. The world needs more and long term personal trainers. But that’s not what you’re doing now.
Chris Markham 12:01
Not what I’m doing now. But I just remember, if you’ve ever met him, like, he’s calm. I’ve never, I’ve seen him yell at me, but if I was being bad, and I just remember, like, the one thing he would do to discipline me, he would just, like, flick me here in my head. And I would just get so upset.
Krista Nash 12:20
So that wasn’t your lived experience of him at all, that he was violent.
Chris Markham 12:27
Right. So when I’m trying to, like, go on with my life, and my mom’s like, you don’t know, you don’t understand, you don’t remember, but then I look at, well, look how he’s treating me. Now I’m not making any sense. That stuff doesn’t just stop, and is just very different. So what my mom was trying to like I guess, put in my mind, versus what my father was showing me was opposite ends of the spectrum.
Krista Nash 12:53
Were your parents physically in the same area? Or was your dad? I think I understood that your dad was on the road a lot.
Chris Markham 13:02
Yeah, from a young, young age, up till first grade, second grade. So it was the summer going into second grade. I think my father was laid off from a major company in the Littleton area that was one of the nails in the coffins. I think that had him move back to California to be closer to my grandparents and be there and closer to his side of the family, because in Colorado, all he had was, like some extended cousins. But he did take some jobs. I remember he told me, he’s like, I took a night job working at a Conoco gas station just to try to make it work. And he had, he had his townhouse that he had purchased too, and he was trying to keep up with the payments of that and everything. And the townhouse was kind of towards Chatfield High School, so kind of around the corner from where we lived
Krista Nash 13:52
Columbine High School and Chatfield high school, just for people who aren’t familiar, are pretty close to each other, and rival high schools, right? Like 10 minutes, maybe not even.
Chris Markham 14:00
Right. So he was trying to make it work and do it however he could. But I think that was one of the final straws in the coffin, plus, with my mom, I think holding us at bay, almost in this weird, tight control, almost gave him permission to just say, hey, look, this feels, it’s just failing completely.
Krista Nash 14:20
Was he in Colorado with you guys trying to make it work, from when you were four till about first or second grade? Do you remember having actual pairing time with him?
Chris Markham 14:29
Yes, he was here for a few years, and yes, we had parenting time on the weekends. My mom would say. Let me give you an example too, because I got chicken pox at a young age. So, my mom was just frantic about the things, and so getting into the bath and having to put that chicken pox stuff on, my mom, here’s, here’s the differences of intensities. My mom was super like rubbing it on me, and it was kind of rough, and it hurts, chicken pox hurt, right? She was just rubbing it on me and not being careful with it. My dad took a Q tip for every single one of them. So it’s like, I would be like, Dad, why does mom not do that?
Krista Nash 15:10
So, I guess he’s not violent and mean?
Chris Markham 15:14
And he was just like, I don’t know, kiddo, and just trying to be him and just trying to make it always a good time when we’re with him. And he understood that I was always craving that connection with him too.
Krista Nash 15:27
Do you remember you or your sister resisting going to your dad’s or resisting going back to your mom’s?
Chris Markham 15:33
Never, never. I did resist wanting to go back to my mom’s and also to my mom. She dated a lot of questionable men after that, and even at that time, there was a guy she was dating too that I didn’t like.
Krista Nash 15:45
And were those men? Were any of them mean to you?
Chris Markham 15:49
Yes. Like, violent, yes. A few of them were pretty abusive too.
Krista Nash 15:53
Like what? Like, screaming at you, hitting you?
Chris Markham 15:55
Physically hitting me or beating me while I slept.
Krista Nash 15:59
Were they beating your mom too?
Chris Markham 16:01
My step dad, the one she ended up marrying at the time. This is years later, too, by the way, too. But it had spun out of control. Substance abuse too. He and I got into it when I was 19, and I put him in the hospital. And then, after that tiff, the police said, Well, he is on the house and he wants you out, so you have to abide by that. So I moved out, moved in with my dad, because my dad had moved back after Columbine from California. And then after that, after he got out of the hospital, he targeted his violence and abusive nature towards my mother, then at that point, and then that’s when my mom finally ended things, when it finally happened to her.
Krista Nash 16:47
So you had a lot of reasons to not go back to your mom’s house. Sounds like she was really struggling. I mean, that’s hard stuff, right? I mean, now might call her an alienator, though. The big word in family law now is alienation. It’s usually an overstated term. It’s usually a kid’s impression that’s negative about a parent is usually a soup of stuff. It’s a lived experience. It doesn’t sound like you had that with your dad anyway, but an effort to sabotage the relationship of your children with the other parent, kind of drum up fears and stuff is what we’d kind of consider that now to be a behavior.
Chris Markham 17:25
That’s totally what was trying to happen was you don’t remember he was abusive. You’re just blocking it out. And I’m like, no.
Krista Nash 17:32
That’s only four when you’re, I mean, you were so little at the time and all. So dad eventually says, I really can’t do this. I’m sorry. I gotta move. You must have been heartbroken.
Chris Markham 17:42
Oh yes. I mean, he says when he came over to hug us, when he was driving out to California, I was more concerned about watching Ninja Turtles, but I remember it being like, I didn’t understand when I wouldn’t see him again. Like, how long that time would be? And it never really crossed my mind, because it would be like, okay, like, I’ll see you soon.
Krista Nash 18:09
No concept of, like, distance or time, and, gosh, this is before FaceTime,
Chris Markham 18:14
Yes. So, I mean, this is still when you had to call long distance.
Krista Nash 18:19
It’s well before, I mean, what year was Columbine? 99? Okay, so he leaves. So then, when did you see him again?
Chris Markham 18:38
I did not see him in person until 94 so, like, fifth grade, the end of fourth grade. I remember my mom telling me that because my dad ended up getting a job doing truck driving across the country, like long haul, what they call it. And I remember.
Krista Nash 19:02
That’s big trucks, the big trucks, the ones you can sleep in and stuff at the truck stop.
Chris Markham 19:07
Yes, he had a sleeper cab and stuff. I remember my mom telling me, like, hey, your dad is going to be here. Do you want to go see him? And I was like, I just remember getting a static, oh my god, like, my neck snapped around, and I was like , yes, yes, yes. We have to go do this. We have to go do this. And I remember on the drive there too because we were meeting up in Commerce City. And if people don’t know this, in Colorado, up in Commerce City, there’s a lot of truck shops up in that area. So there’s a lot of where truck drivers stop over. It’s that I-76 and I-70 corridor.
Krista Nash 19:43
Kind of a pretty industrial area.
Chris Markham 19:49
Yes. And I remember my mom getting frustrated with, like, trying to find the truck stop that he was at to meet us, because he was like, hey, I’m going to be at this truck stop at this time. And there weren’t cell phones or anything to help map it. Is it here or it’s just like, there wasn’t even MapQuest, you could print directions off the internet kind of thing.I remember my mom getting frustrated with trying to find out that she almost turned the car around and went home, and I remember her saying that, and I was like I just remember reaching up out of my seat and grabbing her on the arm while she was driving. And I was like, no, we have to find him. We have to make this work. And she took a big, deep breath, and she was like, okay, we’re going to do this. And so I remember when I first saw him, and I ran up to him in the truck stop, and he bent down and picked me up, hugged me. I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t stop crying for like two hours. It was just so happy to see him, and so bad that it’s been so long. And I was just wondering, oh my God, here he is. And it impacted my mom too at this point, because my mom was between the men she was with in her life at this point. At this point, she’d been single for a little while, and I just remember seeing her and she started crying because she started seeing how much it was affecting me and my sister too. She was crying. And then my mom started crying. And then we hung out. And then I remember, like, my dad’s partner he was driving with. He was telling him about times like, hey, we should get going here.. And then my dad’s like, hey, can we get more time? And then I just remember the guy came back up, and he’s like, hey, we’re going to pull out much later, so you can take as much time as you want tonight to be with him, but we’re going to be hitting the road early in the morning. I just remember that night too. I was so excited too, because I was like, Mom, can dad come back to the house? And so we drove all the way back down to Littleton. He came down with us and rode in the car.
Krista Nash 21:51
That was good of her, at least to allow that.
Chris Markham 21:52
That was something different from what my mom had ever done before. Like this is out of character for her. And I was so excited to show him how we had just gotten a Super Nintendo for Christmas. And I was like, check this out. And we were just showing them the games, and I was trying to show off how horrible I was with it. Not much of a gamer, even now, but it was just, I remember the time I got to spend with him, and it was just those things that were just so precious to me still, and it still are today.
Krista Nash 22:29
I mean, it’s so poignant. It was in what you got maybe eight hours with him, or something like that,
Chris Markham 22:35
Not even that, not even. It was probably like five.
Krista Nash 22:39
in like years, and you’re like this little boy who just loves his dad.
Chris Markham 22:43
And he took pictures, though, and in every picture you could see, I’ve been crying, and my eyes are really red, and I’m trying to smile, get thumbs ups and just be happy. Because he’s like, come on, dude, smile. But you could see it on my face.
Krista Nash 23:04
Did your mom behave during that whole time?
Chris Markham 23:08
She did. She did. It wasn’t the normal aggression between her and him. She gets really aggressive.
Krista Nash 23:16
And as a kid, what did it do for you to see your parents actually get along?
Chris Markham 23:25
To me, as a kid, here’s something that’s pretty powerful that, to me, made me think they could probably get back together.
Krista Nash 23:32
See that happens a lot. I just had a kid share this with me at a home visit. They were like, I asked Santa for my parents to get back together. If you loved me, you would get back together. I mean, kids think this all the time. It’s a fantasy of theirs that is really common.
Chris Markham 23:47
And I thought for the first time they maybe they could make it, like, maybe, maybe there’s something that could be. And it was just you, like you said, the fantasy in my head. But as I got older, I came to understand it as, like they did have love for each other at one point, and they could try to be respectful with one another more and more. My mom was respectful towards him. I don’t ever remember my dad. My mom would get mad at transitions and stuff and drop offs. I don’t know what they call it now, exchanges. I remember my mom always just snapping at him, wanting more, asking for more, giving him more money. And he was like, you’re getting what you got, and that’s all I got. You can’t squeeze blood from a rock.
Krista Nash 24:35
Do you remember that? Were you worried? People talk now, researchers talk about, I mean, at the time, nobody was researching this stuff. And your age, now they are, and it’s a whole thing that they research is this exchange problem and how stressful that is for kids every time those exchanges occur. Because it’s this, first of all, you got to kind of be a shape shifter in the way that you are in one house versus the other, and then just like going across the threshold in this war zone. You’re crossing a borderline every single time. Did you feel that way?
Chris Markham 25:08
My mom had these other men in the house. My mom obviously, there’s still studies, like mothers’ children act worse, and behave worse for their mothers, than anybody else, but my mom would let me get away with some things, but my dad would keep it disciplined, but it was fun and relaxing too. I’m trying to find the words to express that. I always look forward to going to his house, because that structure and discipline, too, made me happier. Does that make sense?
Krista Nash 25:42
Yeah. Because kids, sometimes people think kids do better under no rules, but it’s like a little emperor. It actually isn’t that fulfilling to a kid, right?
Chris Markham 25:53
But then I’d come back to my mom’s too, and she would try to be the “I’m the fun parent too” kind of thing, and then halfway through the week it would shift too, and then it would just be bad mouthing my dad.
Krista Nash 26:06
So then, okay, after the truck stops, you drive back with him, with your mom and say goodbye. Did you do that too?
Chris Markham 26:12
No, actually, it was so late because we got there, this was in the winter time too. So obviously, the sun’s going down, and I just remember, we did actually, no, we did have to get back into the car. We did. She didn’t leave us home alone. We got back in the car. And I remember falling asleep getting out of the neighborhood. I don’t even remember getting on the highway. I think about it.
Krista Nash 26:38
Do you remember saying goodbye to him?
Chris Markham
No, I was out.
Krista Nash
Oh, really. So he just, that was it? He’s just gone? So when did you see him again?
Chris Markham 26:47
Christmas break of 95
Krista Nash 26:51
So when was that? How old were you? I mean, were you talking to him much between that time?
Chris Markham 26:58
So we started doing a thing after that where we really were trying to buckle down weekend phone calls, and calling long distance and just making sure, I would take the time out for me, whatever I was doing, if I was hanging out with friends on the weekend, or hanging out what, playing video games, or whatever I was outside, kicking the soccer ball around, or, I would make sure that I would talk to him and on my week. And then that got pretty frequent. And then there would be parts where it wouldn’t just because of certain things that would kind of break up that consistency, like Boy Scouts Camp trips and stuff. And then all of a sudden we’d fall out of it because we were gone for a week, and then it was like, okay, hold on, let’s get back into this kind of thing.
Krista Nash 27:44
Did you ever go to California to see him?
Chris Markham 27:48
I did that for the first time in 95 at Christmas when we flew out there. And my mom, when we came back, my mom said she felt so bad to have first Christmas without us. Like, it really impacted her too. But I remember telling her too would kind of change her perspective. And she told me this too when we were older. She was like, but think about all the Christmases Dad didn’t have.
Krista Nash 28:20
I was gonna say, like, Mom, you missed one.
Chris Markham 28:23
And it was like, oh, okay, like, insert foot in the mouth kind of thing. And I just remember being out there that Christmas. I didn’t want to go back to Colorado. And then, then, I think we didn’t fly out that summer. We flew out the next summer. So the summer between sixth and seventh grade for a visit. And I remember that visit was really bothering my dad, too, and he was really upset to say goodbye to us. And I just remember there were so many people standing around, and I was trying to go get on the airplane, and there’s all these other adults, and they kind of like, hold me.
Krista Nash 29:01
This is before 911 so you could go to the gates, and could get a lot more emotion happening.
Chris Markham 29:09
A lot more. And I remember just stopping, and I turned back around. I was like, Dad, Dad, don’t. Don’t make me go. Please, don’t. And he told me later that it crushed him.
Krista Nash 29:18
Oh, I can imagine he was actually in a really pretty close relationship with you.
Chris Markham 29:22
Pretty close, yeah, I’d say so.
Krista Nash 29:26
So then at least you got as you’re a little bit older, you got to see him more. I’m toned down after that truck stop visit. Did she kind of choose to tone it down?
Chris Markham 29:32
Of choose she did tone down a lot of the rhetoric that would come out of her mouth about bad mouthing my dad kind of went away, because at that point, too, in 95 she started dating my stepdad and got married to him, and then the abuse got worse, and all the way through high school, and then at the end of my high school careers, where my beginning of my freshman year of college, that’s when everything went down between him and me, and I had to go move in with my dad and all that stuff.
Krista Nash 30:02
So then, before we start talking about Columbine, then, when you think about your childhood, and you think about the divorce and your separation from your dad and all of that, did you feel traumatized? Did you feel like there’s a hole that?
Chris Markham 30:20
Yes, there definitely felt like a huge gait being full in my chest and just something could never fill it up. And I think also too, that would lead to a lot of my acting out behaviors that I had as a young guy.
Krista Nash 30:34
It makes sense . I mean, it does make sense.
Chris Markham 30:37
You couple that with my high intensity and energy you got, you got a chemistry cocktail there that is just a nightmare for every adult.
Krista Nash 30:46
You never had any counseling or anything back then?
Chris Markham 30:51
No, that was not something people were doing. I think at this point is when you would start to hear about kids doing therapy, and therapy would help this situation.
Krista Nash
Let’s talk about Columbine. Then, okay, so you’re a freshman. Also, I don’t want to lose our collective memory about Columbine, because everyone should remember it. So tell us whatever you want to tell us about what happened and your experience of it, because I don’t want to lose the chance to memorialize this for people and to remind people of what happened.
Chris Markham 31:24
So to kind of calibrate the listeners and the viewers, my sister is two years older than me. She was friends with the shooters.
Krista Nash 31:36
So, she was a junior? And the date was? April?
Chris Markham 31:43
So she was in her junior year at Columbine, and the date was April 20, 1999.
Krista Nash 31:47
April 20. And so you’re at the end of your freshman year, and she’s in her junior year, and she was friends with the shooters.
Chris Markham 31:58
So they would come over to my house all the time and hang out. But she, when you see those pictures of the trench coat mafia, the name of the clique, the friend group that they had, like you see all over Oprah and everywhere else, my sister is there and all of that. Okay, my sister was dating Chris Morris at the time, and they were high school sweethearts. They did get married, and then they got divorced.
Krista Nash 32:21
And was Chris Morris friends with Eric and Dylan?
Chris Markham 32:25
He was the guy that was incorrectly identified, I think, by some news outlets that he was a possible shooter. He wasn’t even there in the vicinity of it when it happened. And so there’s all those speculations and conspiracy theories too, like why he wasn’t there because he hadn’t known whatever. I don’t think that at all. I’ve known Chris too, and I thought Chris was just a young punk teenager too at the time, and just wrapped up in the wrongness of what had happened.
Krista Nash 32:58
Do these guys actually wear trench coats all the time anyway? Or is this trench coat thing, like the day of?
Chris Markham 33:03
No, they wore trench coats all the time.
Krista Nash 33:08
Ok, so almost like cowboy dusters, right?
Chris Markham 33:10
You got it, you got it. So the morning of, I go to a couple classes, and then I remember I was kind of late coming down to lunch, because I stopped off in the library real quick.
Krista Nash 33:26
By the way, in the Library is where a lot of the carnage happened, for those who don’t know.
Chris Markham 33:29
Correct. And then I went down to grab my lunch. And then I remember seeing a small number of my friends, so at the group of friends that we stood at lunch together, Daniel Robot, Lance Kirkland, Sean Grazer, and saw them going out the side door to go eat outside, because it was a nice morning that day, spring morning.
Krista Nash 33:54
Yes, like, let’s go outside, smell the cut grass and be outside.
Chris Markham 33:56
Right. And you could tell the school year is ending, and everybody’s getting that summer itch and just ready to go and enjoy their summer, right? And so I remember trying to get my lunch real quick, and then I just got paid for my Subway sandwich, and I remember grabbing a seat real quick and cracking a few jokes with some some friends, and they were just, like, being friends and being teenagers, talking trash to each other. And then I was like, I’m gonna get up and go and turn around and go outside. And then I remember hearing the boom as I stood up, some loud boom. And I was like, what? And made me snap my head around even faster. And then you start hearing the sound of, kind of like it’s gunfire, but, like, you’re thinking like, where is it at what’s going on? And you see, you hear what you would think is kind of fireworks, right? But it’s not like the normal fireworks that you are used to. Something was off. It was more broken up at a different cadence. You’re kind of going, like, what’s going on, what’s going on, what’s going on. And I remember looking out the window, and I could see Daniel Robot drop to the ground getting shot. And then I remember seeing Lance Kirkland trying to jump over the fence that they just recently installed off to the side, there were the stairs that led up on the exterior, the outside, and then Sean was trying to push his way back into the door, and that’s where he was shot too, as well. And so I remember kind of grabbing him and pulling him in. And teachers were coming out of the teacher’s lounge, because it was around the corner, and they’re like, what’s going on?
Krista Nash 35:37
And you notice, at this moment, like when do you realize oh my god, this is a school shooting? Those are your friends that you just saw go outside.
Chris Markham 35:45
Right as I was coming down the stairs, I could see them heading outside.
Krista Nash 35:49
Are they? Were they freshmen, too?
Chris Markham 35:56
Yes. And then that’s when, like, another kid, Matt Katz Meyer, like, grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me back. And that’s when I just realized, like, this is what’s going on. This is a shooting. Oh my god. And I remember running through the cafeteria yelling, like get down and screaming. And I just remember, lik