Another one that's not supposed to be funny

I was offered space for a final column a few days ago, as a generous offer from my editor to say goodbye to the paper and the campus that has been my home for the past two years or so. I said ok before a college student decided to make diabolical history on the campus of Virginia Tech, before the Hokies went from a hated sports rival to people whom when they arrive in Death Valley next year, will be shown a little extra helping of Clemson hospitality.

I have only been to Blacksburg once. It was on the tour of visiting possible places for grad school that eventually led me here. The entire city, much like Clemson, is almost completely wrapped up in the school. It’s a pretty little town, where the gray uniformity of the Hokie stone buildings gives the unmistakably erudite feel of a university, while the consistent effort of drivers on campus to stop for pedestrians, even when they were not at a crosswalk, made me feel welcome in a place I had never before been and be waved across the street by a student with a smile.

Universities are interesting like that. There is an unusual combination of family and anonymity that binds every student who attends. There are people who work in the same building I do that I’ve never met, but when I go home and wear my orange, I’m not surprised anymore to hear a “Go Tigers!” from a stranger in Florida. While universities try and usually do a pretty good job of trying to foster and grow that sense of family, it is still easy to get lost in the anonymity, and to lose people in it.

This one college student, who got so far lost in that anonymity, finally did find a way to escape it forever. 4/16 will be one of those horrible dates that people in Virginia remember for the rest of their lives, stained forever with the corrupted memory of this student who would have otherwise been forgotten. Hopefully, the memory will not be restricted to just Virginia, because this is one of those horrible days where the evil ought not be forgotten. We owe it to the victims, people like Jarrett Lane and Juan Ortiz, who, if given then the chance, may have gone on to be remembered for something less tragic. Or Professor Liviu Librescu, whose last actions were block the door of his classroom with his body in an effort to allow his students a better chance to escape danger. It is moving to read about heroism like that, but awful that it must be revealed in such a tragic circumstance.

It is awful that this will inevitably be co-opted by political activists trying to take advantage of the death of thirty-three members of the Virginia Tech family to push some sort of agenda. It has started already; go read the letters to the editor in the New York Times or Washington Post on this event, and there are volleys being fired about how we need more gun control or more guns, depending on the writer’s point of view. There are questions that will need to be raised, of course, but not yet. It is not fair for parents and wives and husbands to hear things like claims that the administration should’ve been able to stop this madman, especially with as much information that has come out so far. It is still time for grieving, and there is likely nothing that would have been able to prevent this. It was, unfortunately, one of those heartbreaking days where nothing makes sense.

So, what we can do is work in good faith to try to enhance the sense of family while minimizing that anonymity. We can pray for those in Virginia whom this has directly affected, the parents throughout the world who have lost children on 4/16, Virginia Tech as a school and colleges in general. We can offer our condolences to a friend in need. We can continue to smile at strangers and say hi. Those are the things that we can take away from this. We should be vigilant, but not at the expense of the sense of community that makes places like Clemson, South Carolina and Blacksburg, Virginia the places that they are. Places to which it is hard to say goodbye.

Originally published in The Tiger.