My thoughts, prayers... and tears,,, are with everyone down at VA Tech along with any friends or relatives of people at VA Tech.
Maybe this is coming a few days late but sometimes you don't really grasp everything that has or is occuring until the details are all layed out. I write this in tears after reading the long article in The Washington Post (That Was The Desk I Chose To Die Under).
As I read that article, names of towns popped up that are "next door" to me -- and even one that I lived in. Tragedy can happen all over the place and yet, until it relates to home, you don't feel any of it. I sat reading this article and just thinking about that same scenario playing out in a situation that I had been in.... Imagining this scenario happening at Lock Haven. True -- the scenario would never play out at Lock Haven -- but neither would it at VA Tech. Consider you being the student at VA Tech and knowing that your parents are freaking out ... or consider that you are the parent with a son or daughter at VA Tech.... Imagine all the possibilities that could put you right in the heart of this situation.... If you read about the events that occured on Monday, April 16th, 2007 and you think of the ways that that could have hit you and you don't cry -- well, I can't understand how you don't. When the Columbine shootings happened that was on the other side of the country and everyone over here on the east coast didnt think as much of it because, well, that was the west coast..... and this week 32 people now don't even have the chance to think "wow, that could have been me" because it IS them now.
Now starts the time of figuring out what could have been done to prevent this and what so and so did wrong -- but the truth is, maybe it could not have been prevented. There is no point in blaming anyone other than the shooter who killed himself -- but it is something that should take consideration as to how the future can be made better.
The reality is that all of this is a part of life and things are going to happen. We're going to go through hurts and pains and we're also going to see the glory and the miracles that come out of tragedies such as this. The most important thing that we can learn from this is that we can never say that it'll never happen to us -- because so many people on the east coast never dreamed a mass school shooting could occur and we now have had the worst one in U.S. history. And those of us that live in Virginia or those of us that have friends that go to VA Tech -- and especially those who attend VA Tech -- have learned that it CAN happen here.