Tragedy for the Hokies

Little did I know, I made it home today just in time for the VA Tech Convocation on campus. As many students that could fit jammed in their arena for a service to remember those lost yesterday. President Bush is in Blacksburg today and spoke to the VA Tech community, among a few other prestigious leaders in that community. Normally, I would not come home and turn on the tv. It was feeding time for the boys so as I sat on the couch feeding JD, I listened and watched the camera pan around to all of the students, faculty and families there who are mourning the loss of so many innocent college kids. What an incredible tragedy. It’s almost unspeakable. As I sat teary eyed trying to take it all in, I could not help but think about how hard it’s going to be to let JD & Cole out into the scary world on their own.

I went to college not far from VA Tech. It’s down in the mountains of Southwest Virginia – such a beautiful place. In college, we spent a few wild weekends down in Blacksburg, a quiet little university town where you could never imagine such horror happening. Our visits to VT were always fun. It as a beautiful campus; ready for spring. And all hell broke loose yesterday. Hard to believe and imagine really. As the President said, all of those innocent people were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Call me old now, and I probably said something like “I’ll NEVER say that” but here I am saying it. Times have changed so much…these types of scary tragedies were not even on our radar growing up. We never worried about guns in schools. Our kids now are faced with so many things that can endanger their lives. Many of which were not a concern for us when we were in school. Our worst concern was a fist fight in the hallway. Now they have metal detectors in schools and worry about guns, gangs, knives, drugs and more. How on earth will I ever prepare our kids for this? Yikes.

My heart hurts for the families of the kids killed yesterday. I saw an interview this morning on the today show with a brother of a freshman girl who was killed. He was still in shock and spoke of her like she wasn’t really gone. But today, as the events unfolded on campus and the real morning began for those lost, he must be absolutely devastated. He spoke of how proud he was of her that she had chosen to follow in his footsteps and go to Va Tech like he did. And now he has to leave without her.

The country is mourning for these kids and their families. How hard it must be to be a student there who survived the shootings but witnessed the massacre. Horrible.

There were several clergy that spoke today at the convocation and one was better than the next. There was a Hindu, Buddhist, Lutheran and Catholic clergy to speak to the masses. They all had the same message. Take what good we can out of something so bad. Good things come out of tragedy, it just takes patience and healing to see through it.

Although my boys won’t remember this day; or the fact that I sat crying at the tv as I fed them their afternoon bottle, this mass murder made national history. And someday, in school, they will read about it. Lets just hope and pray that nothing of this magnitude happens again in our history. Let this be the last time and let our country continue to be strong and protective of our young people who are subjected to such scary circumstances. These things tend to happen when we least expect them – as always, it’s a reality check to keep in mind what is really important. The families that lost their loved ones will never recover. The loss of a child is something different than any other loss. And I pray for the family of the young man that killed all of those people & took his own life - as angry as you can be about one single person taking so many innocent lives, imagine what his family now has to live with. Life will go on and those of us who didn't lose someone will soon forget - but those families affected will be forever changed.