I know I never post here, but I needed to get this out somewhere.
Five years have passed since the events of April 16, 2007. Much of the sting has gone out of the wound, but the memories never go away. For specific details perhaps, but the feeling of hopelessness, anger, and devastation will probably stay with me forever.
My naïve college freshman worldview was shattered that day. I knew all about terrible things that happened to other people, but I never believed that I would experience tragedy like this. I thought that as students and as a community, we were unbreakable. My most pressing concerns up to that point were writing that King Lear analysis paper and figuring out how to turn down an invitation to KA formals from a guy that I wasn’t into.
That Monday morning, I was woken up by an urgent knock on my door. My RA was rushing through the halls, telling everyone that we were on lockdown until further notice, that we should bolt the doors, and that no one was to leave their dorm rooms to go to class or for any other reason. My first thought was - shamefully - happiness. I got to sleep in! I didn’t have to wake up and go to Biology class. For a few weeks leading up to that Monday, there had been bomb threats to random buildings on campus that had amounted to nothing, and I assumed that this was a similar precaution. You can imagine my guilt at that initial reaction now.
When I re-awoke about an hour later, it was to a call from my big sister and several text messages asking if I was alright. It was only then that my roommate and I turned on the news and started hearing fragments of what had happened. Two people had been shot in West Ambler Johnston - my dorm!! -on the floor immediately above me while I had been sleeping. While we were sitting there in shock, more news started pouring in. Now Norris Hall was involved, and there were several casualties. First one, then seven, then twelve people were injured. I spent the whole day at my computer, assuring people through instant messenger, MSN, and facebook that I was alive and uninjured, because none of our cell phones were working. As the day went on and we stared numbly at the news, the body count skyrocketed. Thirty-three dead, including the shooter, and many more injured.
I don’t remember when the numbness faded-when I stopped shivering and started sobbing. I don’t know if it was that day, or the next. I remember crying for days. I remember the convocation, when Nikki Giovanni spoke so movingly. I remember the vigil, where the whole Hokie community held candles and chanted LET’S GO HOKIES! as the sun set over Burruss Hall. The rest of that semester is fuzzier. We all felt like we were moving through the world in a dream state, that none of it was really real, that it couldn’t have happened. I tried going home for a few days, but I couldn’t wait to get back to campus and be around friends who understood what I was feeling, because they were feeling it too.
I wonder if I’ll ever feel normal on this date. I am inexplicably fragile. The slightest things bring me to tears, even five years later. I sometimes think I shouldn’t feel this way. My life, while touched by tragedy, wasn’t broken by it. I didn’t have any close friends that died that day. But I read about the lives that were cut short, about the Ph.D. students and freshman, the pianists and researchers and jazz band members and dancers - even a holocaust survivor-and I can’t do anything but mourn.
I wish I was in Blacksburg today.
Never forget.