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Forever Friends
When Cassie Bernall died in the Columbine shootings last year, Amanda Meyer lost her best friend. But Amanda will never forget the girl who shared her faith, fears and dreams.

by Crystal Kirgiss

IT'S BEEN NEARLY A YEAR since Amanda last visited with her best friend Cassie.

It was a Tuesday morning, right after their first-hour photography class. Cassie was worried about her outfit. "I can't believe I wore this shirt," she told Amanda. "It looks terrible on me."

Amanda reassured her, told her she looked beautiful, told her she loved her, and told her she'd see her later, probably during lunch, when they usually studied together in the library.

"She looked so pretty," Amanda tells me. "She was one of the most beautiful people I knew. But that was so like Cassie—to be unsure about how she looked. She was so normal, wanting to fit in, wanting to have friends."

Amanda Meyer and I are sitting at the cafe in a Barnes & Noble in Littleton, Colorado. She is telling me about Cassie Bernall, her best friend.

We're not very far from Columbine High School, where Amanda is now a senior and where, on April 20, 1999, two students gunned down a dozen classmates—including Cassie—and a teacher before killing themselves.

Almost everyone knows about Cassie. How she died after being shot in the library at Columbine. How she, according to many reports, said "yes" when asked if she believed in God. How she lived a good life after being rescued from a dark past that included a time when she dabbled in Satanism, wrote letters about killing her parents, and swore she'd never turn to God.

A true best friend
We know a lot of facts and tidbits about Cassie. But those facts and tidbits don't have much lasting importance.

When Jesus sat with his disciples, taught the crowds, and visited one-on-one with people, he was pretty clear about one thing. Relationships are what count—relationships with God and relationships with others.

Amanda and Cassie knew how important relationships could be. Each of them had a relationship with God, and that became the foundation of their relationship with each other. That's how they built a true friendship.

Amanda has talked about Cassie quite a bit in the last year. To newspapers and magazines. To Oprah. To 20/20.

But I don't want to know just about Cassie. I want to know about Cassie and Amanda together. I want to know about their relationship, what it's like to have a true best friend.

So Amanda tells me.

"There was a Bible Club party the end of my sophomore year," she says. "I was hesitant about going because I hardly knew anyone except Amy, who gave me a ride. It was going to be a huge game of Capture the Flag. I was assigned to guard my team's flag with Cassie, a girl I recognized from school but didn't know.

"We devised this great place to hide the flag, right behind a tree. It was perfect." Amanda smiles.

"Then we just had to sit and wait for people to come after the flag, so we had lots of time to talk. It was small talk at first, the typical things."

But the small talk quickly changed into more. Amanda and Cassie heard that someone had gotten hurt in the game. It was Amy, Amanda's ride. She'd had a severe reaction to a bee sting.

"It was scary," Amanda says. "The ambulance came. Amy's parents came. It was obviously a serious thing. I remember thinking, This can't be happening. Cassie sat with me on the lawn away from everyone else, and I said, 'What if she dies?'"

Cassie answered from her heart: "Then she'll be in a better place."

Amanda says, "I'd met this girl only a half-hour earlier, and already we were talking about heaven. Cassie sang me the Jars of Clay song, 'Love Song for a Savior,' that talks about a girl running to Christ and falling into his arms. She said that's what she wanted—to run to God in heaven."

Cassie gave Amanda a ride home that night.

"I told her I was so excited to meet her," says Amanda.

"Yeah, me too," is what Cassie said back.

Friendships are strange things. Each one is different—has its own personality, its own character, and its own pace. Amanda and Cassie's started in a single night, and it was stronger after a few short hours than some friendships are after many weeks and months.

So much in common
Their friendship continued to grow, and one night several months later, after the start of their junior year, it went to an even deeper level.

"We went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant," Amanda remembers. "After ward, we took a long drive, and she told me about her past, all the bad stuff she'd been into, all the hard times with her friends and her parents, all the pain. In some ways, it was hard to believe, because she seemed so strong. In another way, I wasn't surprised. We've all done things we regret. We all have a past. I'd been through some bad things, too."

By then, Amanda and Cassie were about as tight as two friends can get.

"When second semester of our junior year rolled around, we had some of the same classes," says Amanda. "We could work on projects together, help each other with homework, and hang out more and more."

They discovered just how much they had in common.

"We both wanted to be doctors. We both dreamed of going to Cambridge. We both liked the same foods. We both had the same fears about school and guys and life in general. It seemed like everything I said, she agreed with. Everything I thought, she thought, too. I'd never had a friend so much like me."

But that wasn't what really drew them together. It was something much deeper.

"It was totally a two-way friendship," says Amanda. "Cassie didn't just dump on me. I didn't just dump on her. She came to me with problems. She listened to my advice. I felt like I could really help. And vice versa.

"A lot of people I know will sit and listen to my problems, try to help me out. But I want to know that they trust me enough to share their problems with me, too."

This surprises me. In my experience, a lot of people want to talk, but few want to listen. I think what made this friendship so special is that it was comprised of two people whose first thought wasn't, "Does this person care enough about me to listen to my problems?" but rather "Does this person trust me enough to tell me what she's going through?"

"I think about her living"
The last weekend Amanda and Cassie spent together was all about being a good friend.

"It was prom weekend, and neither of us had dates. So we decided to work together at a fund-raising banquet for a youth group. It was at this huge hotel, and after we were done serving the meal, we wandered around the entire place. We rode the elevators. We checked out all the nooks and crannies."

They talked. They laughed. They cried. They giggled. They shared things they'd never told anyone else before, not even each other.

"There are lots of layers to a friendship," says Amanda. "That night, we took off every mask we ever wore. We talked about silly and stupid fears, but also real fears. It affirmed me so much to know that she had the same struggles I did."

And then they went to an after-prom party, where they spent long hours together having fun, being best friends.

On Monday morning, they went back to school. Same on Tuesday morning, the day Cassie worried about her shirt, the day Amanda told her she was beautiful.

By Tuesday afternoon, everything was tragically different.

"I don't think about Cassie dying," Amanda says quietly. "I think about her living. I think about what it was like to be with her and to talk with her. She is special to me because of our friendship, not because of her death."

Those words stick with me as I leave Littleton and return to my Midwest home.

Friendship is what mattered most to Amanda and Cassie. And not just any friendship, but a vibrant relationship that went far beyond the superficial and into the depths of the supernatural, thanks to their shared faith.

Theirs was a relationship we can all learn from.

Notes from Cassie

A Divine Detour?

Saying "Yes" Every Day

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today International/Campus Life magazine. Click here for reprint information on Campus Life.
March/April 2000, Vol. 58, No. 8, Page 30

Read more from 'Interesting People'

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