Pierce Sprague
I’d always felt a disconnect between myself and the events of April 16, 2007.
I was a sophomore in high school. Throughout the years, I’d already seen a host of tragedies fill my television screen—Columbine, 9/11, Katrina, the Indian Ocean tsunami, each a devastating event on its own. Combined with the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East, I was desensitised to the violence that dominated the news by 2007. None of it affected me directly, and the Virginia Tech shooting was no exception. It was sad and, as a Virginia resident, hit much closer to home than the afore mentioned events, but there was no personal connection that led me to grieve the it.
It sounds cruel—“How couldn’t you grieve the undeserved deaths of 32 people?” you ask. And perhaps you’re right; maybe grieve isn’t the appropriate term here. But these were individuals whose existences were naught but a glimmer of recognition that people do, in fact, teach and study at Virginia Tech. No names. No faces. No personalities. When I saw the list of victims, it was just black ink on a sheet of white newspaper to me. I felt bad for them, of course, and I couldn’t understand—and still can’t—what would compel someone to take the lives of 32 innocent individuals. But it was hard to empathise with a situation I knew nothing about. I didn’t understand. I couldn’t.
I still remember the setting when I first heard the news. It was my second class of the day, Honors Government, with Mrs. Bibi. Tyrod Taylor, a superstar high school quarterback who would go on to break all sorts of records at Virginia Tech, was also in that class. Honors Tyrod, we jokingly called it; Mrs. Bibi was infatuated with the man. He had recently committed to play his college ball as a Hokie starting the following fall.
Now, let me demonstrate our youthful insensitivity.
Mrs. Bibi got a notification on her laptop about a developing situation at Virginia Tech. She told us what was happening and hushedly asked if any of us had friends or relatives at school. None of us did, and all at once, our attention shifted to Tyrod Taylor. “Does this mean you’ll decommit?” “What’s your backup school?” “Do you really want to play for a school whose reputation has just been tarnished?”
We were naïve, but it was all we knew.
By the time I got to Virginia Tech, the massacre was two-and-a-half years old. Students who were freshmen when the shooting took place were seniors when I arrived. The wound was still visible, but it had almost scabbed over, and most of the clotting had been done before I ever set foot in Blacksburg.
As the third annual candlelight vigil took place in 2010, I was aHokie, but I still didn’t understand.
Four years have passed since then, and while the event is forever engraved into the foundation of Hokie Nation, its impact on the student body has lessened. Every year, most students will take to Twitter and Facebook with posts of “neVer forgeT” and “We are Virginia Tech. We will prevail,” but the personal connections are largely non-existent. April 16 is no longer a solemn day; it’s a day of elapsed memorial, recalling people we never knew, events we never experienced, emotions we never felt.
But this year, my fifth year here at Tech, I had an inexplicably empathetic realisation.
I am a Hokie.
I came across a personal account of the events written by a woman who was a freshman at the time.* Her story was so descriptive, so deeply moving that I felt every emotion that eluded me for 7 years. I was finally able to put myself in the shoes of a student from that day. Every detail was exclusive to a Hokie; as I read the story, I was her. I finally understood.
All at once, I was flooded by the emotions that every student must’ve felt that April 16.
It was terrifying, unceremonious, confusing, devastating, humbling, enlightening—all at once. I was scattered, inquisitive, misinformed, shaken, rooted to the spot. Guilty. Remorseful.
Helpless.
Then, I found the takeaway. I found what strengthened Hokie Nation in those dark days. I found what inspires our altruistic sense of community.
Human interactions are among the most important aspects of our lives. Building relationships and spreading joy to everyone we meet brings our community closer together and makes everything more enjoyable. We can never know when a life-altering event will occur; we have to cherish every moment with every person we have around us.
We’re all in this life together.
Don’t we want to make it worthwhile?
That’s what April 16 represents. That’s what being a Hokie means.
It took me 7 years to really understand what happened that day, but now, I will neVer forgeT.
It was more than a tragedy. It was a change of perception, a change of mind. An awakening.
And with it, we are stronger than we were before.
*”Live for 32,” a post by Kristen Bernhards (maiden name) on her personal blog, April 16, 2012.
Link: http://paintspeckledpawprints.blogspot.com/2012/04/live-for-32.html?spref=fb
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