Sometimes, you have to look back.
I talked Claudia Riggs into doing it the other day, mostly to see whether she would share what she had learned. She is a woman who was dealt a most-awful hand.
It happened 18 months and two weeks ago. Her grandson, Jack Koller, died in her arms that day.
He suffered a horrendous death at the hands of his father, Benjamin Koller. The 4-month-old had been beaten, his skull fractured. During his short life, he was smothered, slapped, shaken, pinched and bitten.
The baby, his father later explained in court, would not stop crying.
Koller was sentenced to 40 years in prison in July after pleading guilty to child abuse resulting in death.
The best thing, Riggs says — or was it the worst? — was that she was awarded custody of Jack after it initially appeared the boy might make it.
She took foster-parenting classes. She cared day and night for the boy and loved the socks off of him. For six weeks, he seemed a “normal” baby, she said.
And then Jack took a terrible turn. Doctors said he would not last a week. She cared for him in hospice for three. He died in October 2009.
On Tuesday, I asked her about her life since then.
Riggs, 55, said she fell almost immediately into an emotional pit so deep that she did not believe she would ever emerge.
“At night, I would crawl into bed and beg the Lord to take me,” she said. “Now, I’m sure God has a great sense of humor because he just laughed at that.”
She hadn’t much motivation to do anything with her life, she said. Her grandson was dead. Her daughter, Jennifer, Jack’s mother, had moved to Washington state.
“All of my hopes and dreams, my family” she said, “was stolen from me.”
She had been an elementary- school teacher in Jefferson County for 10 years, followed by another 10 as a school librarian in Boulder County.
She quit her job to tend to Jack. After he died, finding full-time work was, and to this day remains, impossible.
“I am trying to reinvent myself at this point,” she says.
She has found part-time work at the Longmont and Boulder public libraries, and substitute teaches when needed at Boulder Valley Schools.
I ask her about Benjamin Koller.
“I’ve learned it is very important to forgive, oh gosh, yes,” she said. “I have forgiven him. I never wanted to walk around with this huge anger. Certainly, that wasn’t going to bring Jack back.”
It took several months for her to get there, she said. Church and ongoing therapy helped.
She has begun writing a book. Tentative title: “Good Grief.” It details Jack’s death, her grief and ways she found to put it in perspective.
“Never allow people to talk you out of your grief,” she said.
She and Jennifer, 22, are reconnecting, she said, adding that Jennifer went into shock when it happened and just shut down. They speak often now.
“I’ve decided to have fun again,” Riggs said. “I’ve stopped feeling guilty for being happy. It happened a lot. But that doesn’t mean the sadness will ever go away.”
She looks back now and says people who go through horrific tragedy get two choices: to heal or become bitter.
“I swore to myself back then that I would not become this mean, bitter person,” Riggs said. “The healing takes time, but at this point, I would say I am very proud of myself.”
Bill Johnson writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-2763 or wjohnson@denverpost.com.
