One year ago Today

Today is the one year anniversary of the terrible massacre at Virginia Tech. I remember the calls from worried family, and terrified IMs from friends. I remember watching TV as all the news unfolded. I remember gasping and shaking my head in unbelief as the estimated victims grew larger and larger. Thirty Two people lost their lives. That would have been my entire dorm floor. I remember trying to calm down my friends from VT all the while freaking out in my head.

The thing I remember most is driving to the VTech campus to pick up my friend Tara so she could spend the night away from campus. Jake and I went late at night, we saw police lights flashing the whole ride down. We saw the sea of newscasters in the football parking lots. We saw a few somber faces of students walking together downtown. Jake was unusually quiet, and we just looked around. I think I expected the campus to have changed physically. That it couldn't be the same as I had seen it just that sunday before. But it wasn't the campus that changed. It was the students. They weren't rowdy or living individual lives anymore. Everyone was thinking about the exact same thing.

I remember seeing Tara walk to our car and just wanting to hug her for hours until she could smile again.I remember that Wednesday, walking around my own campus feeling the strangeness in the air. Something was different, it was a horrible mixture of shock and grief. I took Tara shopping with me today, and then out to lunch before we brought her back to the institute building. Everyone we met had a sad smile for us, most of them hugged Tara when they found out she was a VTech student.

I remember the tears that came even a week later at my school's candlelight vigil. I remember the sadness in Tara's IMs just a few short days ago.

I remember.