Things like this aren’t supposed to happen. The Minaret isn’t supposed to put a black ribbon wrapped around the Virginia Tech logo in our masthead. We aren’t supposed to wake up to news of a dead student and find the news telling us later that 32 were murdered, and the shooter, who was a student, is dead also.
College is supposed to be the best time of our lives, the times when we meet the people and gain the education that will shape the rest of our careers. Monday morning, 32 young men and women did the same things that most UT students and faculty do every morning. They woke up, got ready and went to class. Monday morning, one young person had a different idea of how the day would end. All 32 victims expected to be able to wake up the next morning and go to class.
While the University of Tampa campus woke up Monday and picked up The Minaret, 32 of our colleagues will never again be able to pick up their school’s publication, The Collegiate Times.
They weren’t supposed to go to class and fall victim to a gunman’s delusions. They were supposed to walk to class, learn the material and walk home. Unfortunately, one young man didn’t do as he was supposed to. He changed the lives of countless individuals around the world, including our own students who lost loved ones.
While we walk through the corridors of historic Plant Hall and sit in the beautiful classrooms of Sykes, we must remember that there are 32 young men and women that were just laid to rest in Virginia. Young people just doing what they were used to doing every morning. Young people just like us, who walked to class and never walked home.
While we worry about fire alarms and petty squabbles, countless Virginia Tech students will never be able to return to the classrooms where their friends were murdered. Tragedies like last Monday’s remind us of the preciousness and frailty of life. We learn that no life is immune to tragedy.
Remember, we aren’t supposed to look at The Minaret and see a black ribbon around the orange letters VT. We are supposed to go about our daily lives. At least 32 people our same age, people doing the same things we do every day, will never pick up another newspaper, or go to class, or go to that party on Friday night. They will never even be able to walk home from class.
We should all reach out to our Virginia Tech colleagues and to our grieving UT friends and those who may be harboring personal inner heartaches.
The candlelight vigil on Tuesday was a small step to healing each other.