The mother of one of the Columbine shooters told the families of her son’s victims last night on TV, “I’m sorry.” Sue Klebold, mother of Dylan Klebold, broke her years-long silence in an interview with Diane Sawyer in anticipation of release of her book, A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of the Columbine Tragedy. “I’m so sorry for what my son did. And yet I know that just saying I’m sorry is such an inadequate response to all this suffering.”

Sue Klebold has spent the last eleven years trying to figure out what went wrong. She realizes now that her son was suffering from depression, whereas she chalked up his moodiness to normal adolescence. She regrets that she didn’t heed warning signs.

After shooting 12 fellow students and teachers at his high school in April 1999, Dylan and his colleague Eric Harris committed suicide. Dylan cannot apologize for what he did. Can his mother apologize for his actions? It’s tough to apologize on behalf of someone else, and the apology probably brings little relief to victims.

Perhaps more helpful to victims is to hear Sue Klebold acknowledge what she wishes she had done differently. She regrets that she didn’t search his bedroom, didn’t discover his journal, didn’t ask more questions about school. She didn’t specifically apologize for that in the TV interview; perhaps she does in the book.

The father of one of the victims said after the incident, “There’s a false teaching that God forgives everyone; he doesn’t. God never forgives the unrepentant.” Is he implying that, if God will not forgive, neither can he? But the family of Rachel Scott, another victim, has established a foundation promoting forgiveness. And Ann Marie Hochholter, paralyzed from the waist down, said, ”I realized that holding onto that anger does nothing; it just brings you down.”