A quiet moment in memory of a sad day

Do you remember where you were, a year ago today? A year ago, at the very moment that you found out about the massacre at Virginia Tech. I certainly do. I was in the airy and open stairwell in my grad program's section of our building on campus. I was with a close friend and one of the kindest people on the staff. There's a television mounted on the third floor landing, and that's where I first heard the news. None of us knew what to say, as we stood there watching that television screen. I listened to what had happened, and tried to understand, tried to fully comprehend. I was less than two weeks away from my own commencement, and all I could think was that these young people weren't going to see their own, how tragic it was, and how devastating.

I'd be lying if I said the first thought that had gone through my head was anything other than "Not again. Not another school shooting." All I could do was sit down on the steps and take it in for a few minutes. To think about the brevity of it. I was in Michigan, so far away from the actual events, but I felt them very deeply. It could have happened anywhere on any college campus, at any time, to anyone. I thought about the fear that the students must have felt, the adrenaline coursing through their veins, the thought that this might be the end. I can't even imagine what it was like to actually *feel* those emotions.

I thought about those students when I put on my graduation robe, as I pinned the maroon and orange ribbons in memory of them on my robe, and I thought about them as I walked across the stage and was given my Master's degree.

Here, now, in DC, it seems as if the year anniversary of the massacre has taken a backseat to the continuous coverage of the Pope's every move during his visit here. I thought it was important to stop and take a minute to think about what happened a year ago today, to think about all of those promising young people who will never get the chance to live a long and full life, who will never see their dreams coming to fruition - young people who wanted to leave a mark on this world, and without even knowing it, made a deeper indentation than they ever could have imagined. I think of those students today and honor their memory. And I'm grateful that I was given the opporunity that they weren't - to be given another day, another year, to live, to make my dreams come true. To experience 365 more sunrises and sunsets. I think of them today, in sadness, in reverence, and in gratitude.

Remember