April 16th. The most tragic and heartbreaking day that Virginia Tech had ever seen; the day that our school and campus community was changed forever. For the past five years, this day has been the most difficult day of the year for me to get through. For the past five years, I’ve avoided looking back on blog entries and records I kept from back then, because it was painful enough to remember this day without unearthing all the details and emotions I had felt at the time, and because I felt like it’d just be reopening an old wound.
I remind myself, though, that I have the responsibility to remember. If we don’t, who else will? However much I talk to Dan or my closest friends and family about it, they will never fully understand… only those that were also in Blacksburg, on April 16th of 2007 and experienced the tragedy unfold will be able to remember it in the same way. We must remember so that we can work to hopefully prevent such an event from happening again, and so that we can honor the lives of the students and faculty who were lost.
I dug through my old blog posts from April five years ago, and found this entry which most effectively conveys my experience of April 16, 2007.
The Aftermath
April 22, 2007
7:02 pm
It’s been almost a week since the tragic events of April 16th occurred on our own campus, but it feels so much longer. The day of the shooting alone felt like three or four days as my roommates and I were stuck indoors in our apartment, glued to the television, shedding more and more tears as the death toll continued to rise. It feels like a month has passed now, and the disbelief that this happened on our campus still remains.
In these past days, I’ve experienced the most incredible pain and witnessed more sadness that I’ve ever seen up close in my entire lifetime. Losing a friend in such a horrible way is really unthinkable, especially on a campus that I know so well. As I watched everything unfold on TV last Monday, I felt like I was watching a horror movie, that it was so distant… except the buildings, the streets, everything were places I had walked carelessly just days prior to the massacre. Now our campus seems so different, and it’s not just the yellow tape around Norris Hall and the memorials that are popping up all over the drillfield. Is this really the same place? I never questioned our safety here until now. Every time that I hear sirens now, I feel a really sick feeling in my stomach.
Tuesday (4/17) was the first day I had stepped onto campus since the killings. The sky was a bright blue and it was so sunny and warm, it was hard to believe it had been flurrying and so windy the day before. The beautiful day made me all the more sad, and I couldn’t stop crying when my friend pointed out that “God makes the sky so blue on the day of departure.” The convocation was great – George W. Bush gave a terse but good speech, and the concluding poem by Nikki Giovanni (“We will prevail… we are Virginia Tech.”) moved me to tears. I walked around campus a bit with my friends to sign the memorial boards and to just let everything sink in, and despite the unchanged beauty of our campus, there were still reminders – a sidewalk with a huge bloodstain, a small concrete pole mowed down by a SWAT car. The candlelight vigil at 8pm was amazing. I was stunned by the number of people who came out for it – I have never seen that many people come together on the campus before. I was a wreck there, but I think that crying it all out has helped me slowly embark on the healing process.
Seeing our AASU board completely broken at our meetings this past week was really heartbreaking for me. All because the killer was a Korean, our Asian community has been getting hit hard by the media. One thing I’ve taken out of the experience is that you cannot trust the media – they are heartless, and will stop at nothing to try to get even one word out of you. In the days following the shooting, my email inbox has been flooded by requests for interviews, my cell phone was constantly ringing (where do they get my number?), our AASU answering machine is full, the phone in the office is constantly ringing, and reporters flock to you while you walk campus, simply because they want a reaction from someone to represent the Asian community. This is not a race issue. Can they not understand that we are going through everything that everyone else on this campus is suffering right now? We knew people who were killed; we are grieving too. The school that we all love has been branded as the site of a historic massacre. The last thing we need is a lot of unnecessary stress and harassment just based on the fact that we share the same race or ethnicity as killer Seung-Hui Cho.
I went up home for a couple days, and took some friends with me, just so we could get away from the constant reminders for a little while. It was a little more relaxing, and it was nice to see my family. Of course, we couldn’t completely escape it – right around then was when they released the video and photos that Cho had sent to NBC so it was all over the news channel, and of course the thoughts never really leave your head when something like this has happened at your own beloved campus to people that you knew personally.
I came back late Friday night… the campus is struggling to latch onto a sense of normalcy. The media has calmed down quite a bit, although it seems like a lot of them are lingering until Monday, when students return to classes for the first time. Saturday, I went with Richard and Taka to help the Japanese community here put together 1000 cranes for the victims that are still in the hospitals. 1000 cranes symbolize world peace, and one of the Japanese professors here came up with the idea to fold them for this tragedy. We had to leave early, but I heard they were able to make close to five sets – 5000 cranes. We also attended the Memorial Picnic sponsored by Hokies United in the evening. Virtually every restaurant in Blacksburg had a tent out there, serving free food that they had donated to the event. People were walking their dogs, sitting and eating with friends and family, playing frisbee and soccer…. I saw no tears, and it was really nice to see so many happy faces on our campus. The only thing that brought me back to reality was when I saw Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum as I was walking around. I immediately recognized him because I’d seen him on television at the press conferences, and people were going up to him and shaking his hand and giving him hugs. My friends and I shook his hand and thanked him, and just looking at his face made me well up with tears. He tried to force smiles at us, but he looked so exhausted and worn out. There was indescribable sadness in his eyes, which had undoubtedly seen the worst things in his lifetime just in this past week. On top of that, the public and the media have been harsh in criticizing the actions of the university and the Virginia Tech police, all of it being directed at university president Charles Steger and Chief Flinchum. It’s easy to tell them that they acted poorly in the aftermath, but nobody could have ever predicted that something like this would happen. People just keep trying to find a scapegoat, but blaming others is not going to do anything to help our university community heal.
In contrast, I am really moved at how the community here has really come together in strength to understand and go beyond this tragedy. I am also incredibly touched at how much support we’ve been receiving from other universities all over the country, as well as from all my friends and family outside of Virginia Tech – I have heard from people I haven’t talked to in years, all making sure that myself and everyone here is okay. I heard that so many people wore our colors on Friday at high schools, other universities, and in the workplaces. I am so grateful for all the encouragement, support, and love.
I have never been so proud to be a Hokie.
It’s painful to remember, but too important to forget. The world stopped and watched in horror as a nightmare unfolded on our campus five years ago — it is my sincere hope that we will never have to see another April 16th.
“Take time to remember the legacies, remember the dreams and remember the talent that our community has lost. I hope you are inspired to work harder to honor the 32. Share you talents with the world for the 32. Achieve your dreams for the 32. Be more compassionate, friendly and thoughtful for the 32. Be better, for the 32.”
— 2007 Virginia Tech SGA President Adeel Khan