Today marks the 2 year anniversary of the Virginia Tech school shootings on April 16th, 2007. It is still to this day, two years after the fact, unfathomable for me to wrap my head around this incident and how it has affected not only my life, but the lives of my Hokie sisters and brothers.
People have always told me that there are certain moments in your life that you will remember forever. My mom used to describe in uncanny detail what she was doing and feeling and thinking when she heard the news that our president John F. Kennedy had been killed. During my lifetime, I have had two such experiences that will forever be ingrained in my mind. One was September 11th, 2001. The other, April 16th, 2007.
I remember driving to Roanoke, VA from the Virginia Tech campus early in the morning on April 16th. I was in a carpool with a group of other fabulous teachers who were student teaching at the same elementary school as I was that spring. I specifically remember thinking what an odd day it was because of the weather. Although it was mid April and spring had sprung, it was unusually cold. Snow flurries fluttered through the early morning air. The girls and I discussed how crazy the weather was during the 30 minute car ride.
I remember getting to school and going through our normal morning routines in the classroom. I was student teaching in a fifth grade classroom at Morningside Elementary. Sometime that morning, I went to the back of the classroom to check my cell phone. I am not sure what prompted me to do so, as I keep my phone on silent when I am at school so as not to interrupt my class and no one ever called me when they knew I was teaching anyway. I was startled to see that I had received about 10 text messages and many missed calls. I knew something terrible had happened right away and panic set in. Did something happen to my parents in Northern Virginia? Was my apartment in Blacksburg on fire? Did something happen to one of my roommates or one of my friends? It took me a moment to collect myself and open one of my messages. The first one was from my boyfriend Andy who was attending school at Clemson University in South Carolina. The text said "shooting at VT. 2 people dead". I went on to the next text. "more shootings. more people dead". The next several texts were from my friends at other schools and my former VT friends who had graduated (I was in graduate school at the time) asking if I was okay and if I was safe. I was trying to be as discreet as possible about reading my messages in a classroom full of 5th graders and my supervising teacher. It was very difficult to react in that environment. I didn't want to upset my students or create a scene in the room. It was hard to put on a front and not react immediately to this terrifying and confusing news.
A few minutes later as events continued to unfold, the principal of Morningside Elementary (a Virginia Tech alumn herself) intercomed all of the Virginia Tech student teachers to report to her office. All 5 or 6 of us met in her office. One of my friends and fellow teachers was visibly upset, crying and needing comfort from us. I remember feeling so confused because I did not have any information about what was going in and I didn't fully understand why she was so upset. I didn't understand what was actually transpiring on our beautiful campus at those exact moments. The principal proceeded to inform us that there had been several shootings on the Virginia Tech campus and there were several people killed. A million things ran through my head. Shootings? At my school? Not at my beautiful Virginia Tech campus. Are my roommates okay? How could this have happened? Why did it happen in those classrooms at that time, and not in one of mine?.... Who would do this?
I remember watching the news coverage in the basement of the school. We sat in a tiny room and watched the chaos unfold on T.V. for the rest of the day. I called my mom and my dad just to hear their voices. I contacted all of my friends and roommates to ensure that we were all okay. The thing that sticks out the most to me was watching the death count continue to rise as the hours passed. 2 dead...4 dead....10 dead.......... 32 innocent lives taken.
On this April 16th, I spent my day in a different classroom, in a different city, with different students. But not once, not even twice, several times throughout my busy day, I stopped to think of those 32 lives taken from us too soon. When I got frustrated today, I found myself thinking how lucky I am to be able to feel frustration. When I got angry, I found myself thinking how much I wish those 32 people were still around to get angry about things. We all take life granted and sometimes it takes a tragedy to remind us that sometimes we should just be grateful for being alive and well and HERE.
I may not have known any of the 32 victims personally, but those 32 people were still my sisters and brothers... because we were all Hokies. I remember them today and always...
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