BOB ABERNETHY: Next month on April 20th, it will be one year since the shootings at Columbine High School. The murders shocked the country, millions of people asking why Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 12 fellow students and one teacher and then killed themselves. On the eve of the Columbine anniversary, reporter Judy Valente visited Littleton, Colorado, and found there lingering guilt and anger, sharpened awareness of the fragility of life, and widespread belief in the existence of evil. Our story begins with the remorse of a lay staff youth minister.

Mr. JIM BECKMAN (Youth Minister): What are we doing ourselves? What commitments are we making during the season to really help us get ready for all that God wants to do in our lives?

JUDY VALENTE: Jim Beckman is the youth minister at Saint Francis Cabrini Catholic Church, which buried three students from Columbine High School, more than any other church in Littleton. He still wonders how it could have happened.

Mr. BECKMAN: How did these two kids get so lost? This wasn't something that happened overnight. This is something that took years and years to develop, and it's years of neglect and being missed by just about everything around them. But as a youth minister in this community, like, I take it personally, like somewhere, I missed two kids.

VALENTE: Now Beckman believes he has the most important job in America.

Mr. BECKMAN: Since the shooting happened at Columbine, I feel like I've just been validated so much in my job. And I feel like what I do is so important. Building relationships with kids and through them, their families, and through them, their circle of friends, it put us in a place where, when everything happened last April, kids came running to us.

VALENTE: Just after the shootings, Beckman helped the Columbine community deal with its losses. But now his focus is on the living, trying to help them cope with feelings of anger, guilt, recrimination, and an overwhelming sense of the impermanence of life.

Mr. BECKMAN: Tragedy could strike at any time, so live ready for that. Is your life in a place where you've considered eternity, you've considered what happens at the end of your life?

VALENTE: Ben Schumann narrowly escaped one of the gunmen. The bullet ricocheted off a wall, spraying Schumann's neck with debris.

BEN SCHUMANN (Junior): I thought that this was a safe haven, you know? I came here every day with no worry about if something was going to happen to me. And then they come running in wielding guns and it totally destroyed my whole sense of -- I don't know -- peace and trust.

A lot of my friends, they're also very angry. They have just such a deep sense of anger and sorrow.

VALENTE: Many parents are still seething with anger. Ken and DeDe Chism's daughter Amber was trapped inside a locked classroom for several hours before police rescued her.

Mr. KEN CHISM: I attended seven funerals with Amber. You know, that's too many for anybody to attend. That changes you.

Ms. DEDE CHISM: The day of the shooting, things were crazy. I hadn't told her good-bye. And then it petrified me. The police officer said, "Can you tell me what your kid was wearing?" I could not do that. That is an awful feeling. So I can tell you that I know what my kids have on every day.

VALENTE: The Chisms say their daughter has matured quickly in the past year.

Amber says she feels not hatred but sadness for the shooters.

AMBER CHISM: Their lives were lost, too, and, like, their lives were lost even before the others because theirs were lost to evil.

VALENTE: The people of Littleton are still struggling to forgive. When one church planted these trees to memorialize all 15 of the victims, some people came and cut down two of the trees dedicated to the gunmen. But there's hope that the upcoming anniversary of the shootings will provide some measure of healing.

It won't be easy. Like many in the community, Jim Beckman is still haunted by the sheer horror of the event and questions over what could have been done to prevent it.