Today is another remembering day for me (and lots of others). April 16, 2007 is high on the list of the saddest days in my life. I’m thinking of all those families missing their children or their parents. I remember feeling so shaken, that something like this could happen at a place that I hold so close to my heart. The Virginia Tech campus has always been a safe place for me, like home, where you just feel free to breathe. Could one person take that away from all of us? I don’t think he did. We’ve been to Blacksburg twice since the shootings. The first time was hard – we walked through the memorial and wondered how engineering students spent their days now that Norris Hall doesn’t have classes anymore. I have so many memories (not all good) of that building – classes and tests and stress and friends. I got asked out on a date in there. You know how when you read a book and you picture the setting, and that setting is usually a place you are familiar with? When I read a book that has a classroom scene, it is always a classroom in Norris Hall. You can’t even look at that building, in the center of campus, without remembering.
I guess you never really lose the fear that something will happen to your child. I was afraid last night when the baby wouldn’t wake up for M when he finally had a minute to relax. I was fairly sure all was well – I’d just felt hiccups 10 minutes before. I’ll always be nervous when this baby is out of my sight. I’ll have to trust that s/he will grow up with a strong sense of right and wrong, but what about other people? I can’t always be there…
So all you Hokies out there … Let’s Go! Hokies!
Who ever thought that a football cheer would stir up so many emotions?
3 comments:
Didn't know you were a fellow Hokie. We had left Blacksburg the August before the shooting, but I was working at the Women's Center...if I'd been there, I would have been doing the crisis intervention, along with my former coworkers. Police Chief Wendell Flinchum's wife was in my book club...it was so surreal watching everything unfold in a place that has been such a home--and we still consider a home.
I am here in the middle of the midwest, but the VT shootings just moved me so much, too. Thinking of them all.
As a college administrator, that day was significant for me as well. Thank you for sharing your reflection. Hang in there.
Post a Comment