Moment of Silence

Today was a very, very slow day at work. It meant I spent a portion of every hour updating myself on the tragedy unfolding in Blacksburg at Virginia Tech. Being a media junky, a student of crisis communications and a horrified human being, I had a hard time not going back again and again, hoping that it was all over.

On my commute home, I did some thinking. The same thoughts ran through my head that did during the coverage of the Columbine shooting eight years ago. What a tragic loss of innocence. What a rude awakening to the darker side of life. I thought about my own college experience - largely spent on a green, hilly campus nestled in the foothills. The community in which it was located was largely like that of Blacksburg - isolated, fairly rural, of a similar size. The campuses hosted about the same number of students.

There were a string of tragic and life-changing events during my tenure at university, but they were distinctly private tragedies - not a single one warranted coverage in even the student newspaper. The loss of family members by myself and roommates, emergency room visits, major medical issues, the suicide of an aquaintance who lived next door - all quiet events, a cause for pause among those closest to the incident with little notice by the outside world.

I can't even begin to imagine the horror that has settled on those closest to this tragedy - the students, the teachers, the parents, the administration, the community, the first responders. How do you explain something so tragic? How do you prevent something equally as heinous from happening again? How do you make up for the loss of innocence among young adults?

College students (young adults test-driving full-time adulthood) aren't innocent, but surrounded by peers the same age, in semi-isolation, on a quiet, respected campus, one forgets that the outside world co-exists. One forgets that real life moves on, even beyond the statuesque buildings, grand lawns and enclaves of students pursuing academic progress. When the two worlds collide on a day like this, it is undeniably shocking.

It is numbing and sad and disturbing all at once. My heart goes out to those injured, killed and profoundly changed by this horrible, confusing tragedy.