FUNNY, TOMORROW.

http://www.techsideline.com/message_board/coverage/

Orson,

Thanks so much for the kind words. Something like this happening in Blacksburg was totally unthinkable 24 hours ago. The scope of such a tragedy truly hits home when the areas pictured were your own personal stomping grounds for many years. The “realness” of it all is difficult to express. I’ve had classes in those buildings… I spent about five years of my life in a 10 minute walking radius centered on the building where the second shootings occurred.

To put things in perspective, Norris hall is the home to the Engineering Science and Mechanics department… A department which typically has 13-15 students in any given year. I was in a similarly small department right next door. You get to know your classmates very well. Losing even one student in a department that small to violence is horrible. I can’t begin to wrap my brain around what it would be like if a third or a half of my friends from school died in the same day, before my eyes.

I strongly echo your statement about telling your loved ones how much you love and appreciate them. I lost my mom to pancreatic cancer less than 2 weeks ago and the two things that have sustained me are the fact that I know she had a strong faith in Christ and the fact that I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with her between her diagnosis in January and her passing this month.

I was fortunate in that I had time, though very brief, to tell her how much I loved her before I lost her. The loved ones of these kids at Virginia Tech won’t get that chance.

thanks, orson. like everybody else, i’ve been trying to wrap my head around this ordeal all day but to no avail. i didn’t go to Tech (and have never visited, for that matter) but you hit it right on the head: we all share similar experiences from that particular period, and those experiences and the camaraderie we gain from the school community are worth just as much as the pieces of paper on our walls. my deepest condolences go out to the friends and family of those killed or injured, as well as the Tech family at large…

This is absolutely unreal. Every prayer I have is headed Blacksburg’s way.

Thanks Orson. Excellent thoughts.

Well said, O. Well said.

Whoever your God is, ask Him to watch over these unfortunate souls tonight.

And pray for their families.

Whatever our differences, what we all share is college. Four (or more, or maybe less) years that shaped our lives more than probably any other time. It’s because of our love for our time in college that we spend time reading and writing and thinking about a diversion like college football. My time at Cornell and then Ohio State defines me decades later. My oldest child is graduating from college next month, and all the memories come back again.

I cannot imagine the incredible awfulness of the VT shootings. Even the horror of the Danny Rolling / UF murders, and the Ted Bundy / FSU murders pale before this. Decades from now we will remember the VT shootings, and they don’t deserve that. We mourn for VT, and we mourn for their memories.

Orson, thanks for putting in words what many of us are feeling. This is just terrible. My dad is a VPI alum, but I can’t imagine if this was Reid, Broward, Turlington, Emerson, etc. God bless the Hokies.

As individuals, tell the ones you love that you love them. Every single day. There’s no irony here, and no royal we. I don’t believe in any certainty in life besides its end. If you love someone, tell them sooner rather than later. Not being able to once they’re gone is more painful than any embarrassment you might feel telling them in the first place.
What he said.

Folks die all the time: now and again, some of them will be close to you. Speaking from experience, it is a real comfort to be able to remember that you communicated your love the last time you spoke to one who is now gone. You never know when that will be, so saying it every time is a good idea.

Excellent thoughts, Orson. Prayers a-coming from across the Atlantic today.