AURORA | Sifting through the physical fallout of this kind of tragedy isn’t in the everyday realm of these historians and volunteers.
The makeshift memorial on South Sable Boulevard and East Centrepoint Drive built up steadily in the days and weeks following the massacre that unfolded at the Century Aurora 16 theater on July 20, 2012. The piles of stuffed animals, hundreds of candles and homemade placards with hand-written messages of grief and sympathy accumulated on the edge of the dusty vacant lot across the street from the theater. Along with the 12 wooden crosses, those tokens of sympathy and grief lingered for two months before staff and volunteers from the Aurora History Museum collected them in September.
As victims, families and the larger community brace for the one-year anniversary of the tragedy, questions about the future of those items — as well as a more permanent memorial — still remain. Many of the hundreds of items remain boxed up in an undisclosed warehouse space somewhere in the city, a storage facility donated by an anonymous community member. A crew of more than 20 are still working to catalogue the items that filled more than 160 boxes in September.
“It’s hard to give a good sense of the amount of the material,” said Aurora History Museum Director Jennifer Kuehner. “It’s going very slow, because we want to be sensitive to the needs of the collection and the needs of the families.”
Those aren’t the only reasons the process is taking time. Museum staff and volunteers have been careful about finding the correct way to itemize the hundreds and hundreds of pieces. That’s no small task for the staff at a small museum dedicated to municipal history; it’s a challenge for the crew of unpaid volunteers who are looking to help.
“Since none of us here on staff had experience collecting this type of material that was sensitive to a specific event, we consulted other museums,” Kuehner said, adding that museum officials have reached out to those involved in the memorials near Columbine High School. They’ve also been in touch with the History Colorado museum. “We all have backgrounds in preservation (but) since this was a specialized case, we had to get some more information from others.”
Even as staff look to properly inventory the items from the site on South Sable Boulevard that drew visitors from across the world, city officials are still uncertain about the bigger question of a permanent memorial.
“We’ve reached out to the families to see how they might want to be involved in the next steps for a permanent memorial,” said city spokeswoman Kim Stuart. “We really want them to help lead the way with the process. I think we see ourselves as providing support,” she added, pointing out that the city’s bigger role may come in engineering and architectural design work.
The slow pace isn’t singular when it comes to finding a proper tribute to a local tragedy. Two months after the school shootings at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, a committee of students, faculty, emergency personnel and other Littleton community members formed to plan a permanent memorial. Construction work on the $2.2-million memorial didn’t formally kick off until June of 2006. The memorial was completed more than a year later, in September, 2007.
“It’s a very slow process, but it needs to be,” Stuart said.
Getting all the mandatory input from family members, victims and community members is a long and laborious process, one that can take up untold months. But the logistics of the process aren’t the only reason for the slow pace. For Kuehner and her staff at the museum, the cataloguing and itemizing isn’t the same kind of process that comes when excavating a homestead on the eastern plains or sifting through relics from Aurora’s recent past.
“It has quite a bit more emotions attached to it because it’s so current,” Kuehner said. “Those of us on staff have memories connected to the event. There’s more of a personal connection … than there sometimes is in collecting objects.
“It’s taking its toll on my staff a little bit; but we’re getting through it,” she added.
For now, the only reminder of the makeshift memorial that grew up on a hill off South Sable Boulevard and drew visits from community members and celebrities alike is a white sign that’s already showing the wear and tear of weather and time. “Thank you for the outpouring of love and support for the victims of the 7/20 tragedy. Always remember,” the sign reads.
Finding a more permanent way to remember will take time.