Remembering April 16, 2007

It was one year ago today that my beloved university was launched from merely being my favorite place in the world to being the place of the worst school shooting in history. While the shock and disbelief of seeing safe and secure Blacksburg put on the global map as a place of violence never really goes away, one year later my greater concern is how to properly remember and celebrate the 32 Hokies who lost their lives doing nothing more than living their lives and trying to further their education.

32 is a really big number, especially when you think in terms of people, and lives, and it becomes overwhelming when you try to include the number of people those lives touch, or touched. If you had full cars of 4 people, it would be an 8 car pile-up. It's one person shy of 3 soccer teams. It's 3 years older than I am right now.

I am still overwhelmed by how much space is taken up on the Drillfield by the memorial. Standing there and seeing the physical representation of 32 people is not soon forgotten.

How to honor these Hokies? If you took a minute of silence for each person, it would take more than half an hour. If you decided to celebrate each person for a day, it would take more than a month to recognize everyone. And yet neither of those seem to be enough.

On an average day I can easily recall certain people that stood out to me, but even now as I scroll over the smiling photos on the page of remembrance I see faces and names I don't quite remember, but want to - especially today. It makes sense that we have a closer connection to those who have a shared experience; the same major, the same name, the same clubs at school, from the same state, the same country of origin, or some other snippet of their biography in which we see ourselves.

The truth is that the victims are a fairly accurate sampling of the Virginia Tech student and faculty body. They are the every person, and part of the horror of April 16th 2007 is that it could have very well been me, or you, sitting in one of those classrooms. And this 'average person' is part of what adds to the magnitude of the tragedy.

While I personally feel violated by what happened at my school, my true sadness is for the loss of life of 32 members of my Hokie family. People who were doing nothing more than trying to improve their lives and the lives of those they were teaching. Hokies I will never get to meet at an alumni event, who will never again cheer until they lose their voice at a football game. Hokies who will never get to make great discoveries and contributions in their field or career. Hokies who will never again volunteer to help those less fortunate.

Looking upon the bright smiling photos of those lost, I make a promise to myself; in the words of Lincoln, "that these dead shall not have died in vain". That I will learn to appreciate my life while I have it, for it may unexpectedly come to an end. More importantly, that I work a little harder to make the world around me better - with 32 less Hokies to contribute, I'm sure extra effort is needed.

We will prevail. We are Virginia Tech.

GO HOKIES!