Never Forget
Today marks the four-year anniversary of the tragedy at Virginia Tech.
This is the first time in a few years that I've actually had an opportunity to reflect on what happened. For the last two years I've scheduled trips home from college, mostly due to openings in my schedule, but this year I find myself alone, with no plans to travel and my roommate gone for the weekend.
I took this afternoon to finally sit down and come to terms with some things that I wasn't ready to acknowledge before, namely, the infamous cell-phone footage taken by a student safely outside of Norris hall the day of the incident. (I can't bring myself to watch the footage taken inside the building. I have no idea how long it is or what it contains, but I don't care to know.)
As I watched the video, I broke down and started sobbing halfway through. It's powerful and terrible, and it's unimaginable to me that something like that could happen in a place that I consider to be so safe and so nurturing. It doesn't feel real to actually watch and hear how the events unfolded in places that I pass by every day on the way to and from class, places that I recognize like the back of my own hand, knowing that the student who took the footage did so from a place where I've actually stood before. It's sobering.
On a final note, I feel especially compelled to observe the anniversary because the wife of one of the faculty members who was killed is currently one of my professors this semester.