I'm from the DC suburbs of Northern Virginia, about 4 hours from Blacksburg where the shooting deaths of 32 innocent occurred yesterday at Virginia Tech. I've visited Blacksburg many times and took both my kids there on pre-college tours. My son attended two years at Radford, only 15 miles from Blacksburg. Virginia Tech was my second choice for college - I attended William & Mary.
So it's not THAT close to home,
but it is WAY too close to home.
So many unanswered questions.
Who did this and why?
Why did the university seem so slow to react?
Could anything have been done to end the rampage sooner?
Should we tighten gun-control laws?
Each of these questions and many more will be asked and answered over the coming days, weeks and months.
But none of the answers can provide true comfort for the families of those murdered and injured.
When something like this happens, it causes an immediate reaction of disbelief and shock.
It's Kubler-Ross' five stages of grief, each of which we must endure after any trauma.
I feel the sense of shock now,
as the sun rises to begin a beautiful spring morning with a bit of chill in the air.
Reminds me of 9/11/01, a beautiful fall day,
another day of tragedy
that lead to much greater tragedy than even the 19 guys with box-cutters could have hoped for.
Why do we react in such a way?
Do such events awaken in us the slumbering realization
that we too are mortal,
and that our time must come one day,
that life is temporary,
but death is permanent?
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The loss is just staggering on so many different levels. Loss of life, loss of loved ones, loss of potential, loss of trust, loss of innocence -- the list goes on and on. I don't know even one of the victims, but I am grieving for them.
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