It's a day that I will never forget. Every Hokie remembers where they were that day when they heard the news and has a unique story about how they were affected. This is mine.
I was working about 45 minutes away from Blacksburg. It was a normal day at the office when we began to hear that something had happened at VT. We heard there had been a shooting in a dorm, West AJ, that morning, but no other details. Then as the hours passed, we heard there was a shooting in Norris Hall and at least 2 people were dead.
Then 8. Then 10. Then 20. TWENTY.
Then VT President Charles Steger held a news conference to announce there are 33 confirmed casualties, including the shooter.
THIRTY-THREE.
33 people. dead. on a campus where I lived for four years. where I met and fell in love with the man who is now my husband. where I found myself and realized the world is so much bigger than the small town where I grew up. the campus where I became an adult and made life-changing, amazing memories.
I remember sitting at my desk, crying. One of my co-workers was also a Hokie and we were in shock and disbelief. Another co-worker had a son who was a student at VT and he scrambled to reach his kid, and luckily was able to get in contact with him to breathe a sigh of relief that his son was okay.
Later that week I watched the President of the United States (George W. Bush) attend the invocation on campus from my desk online. That invocation at Cassell Coliseum was overwhelming. Still to this day anytime I see Nikki Giovanni's speech "We Will Prevail" - I fall apart.
Everyone has a connection to the tragedy.
Blacksburg is like that. Only 1 or 2 degrees of separation for a school of over 25,000 students. Our tight-knit community is built on the fact that we do all really know each other or know their friends or their friends' friends.
For me, a sister in my sorority was shot that day. She was one of the survivors. I didn't know her personally at the time, but after April 16th, I reached out to my sorority's Chapter Advisor to ask how she and the chapter were handling this tragedy and what could I do to help? There was an open spot on the sorority's advisory board and so I stepped in as their Recruitment Advisor.
My title didn't matter, nor did the songs we sang practicing for Formal Recruitment that year. What mattered was the safety and compassion we felt when we were together, the support we knew we had from each other. What mattered was how those women were dealing with the death of their friends, with the shooting and recovery of their sister and with their loss of security on a campus that was their home away from home.
I stepped up to help my sorority because I wanted to help the chapter, but selfishly because I wanted to help myself grieve. I needed it. I needed to be around others who understood how bad it hurt. I later met the sister who had been shot in the head, stomach and back and survived thanks to at least 4 surgeries (including one to remove a bullet from her spine). She came back to school and, incredibly, her younger sibling came to VT the next year. She is amazing and inspiring and has gone on to graduate from VT and help people around the world.
I think that's why I'm so connected to my sorority, perhaps more so than when I was a student. I saw the power in our sisterhood as we came together to grieve, to heal and to help each other during the darkest days.
It Feels Personal
Even though I wasn't a student at the time of the shooting, it feels personal. It feels like a violation of my hometown. I had classes in Norris Hall and it felt strange that the building where I sat for Geology classes freshman year is now the site of the worst massacre on a college campus in US history. I still can't fathom that this happened to my little town, my former campus, my home.
The Hokie Nation, as we are called, doesn't stop at graduation. Virginia Tech is not just a place where I cheer for a football team or received my degree, it's where I became who I am today. It's where I found people who were like me, found even more who weren't and yet, we were all friends who lived together, laughed together and learned from each other.
"While 32 of our friends and classmates are in heaven trying to explain what a Hokie is, I stand here sure in the fact that I wouldn't want to be anything else."
