Virginia Tech, Chez, and Paul

Chez had already started me thinking this morning. I had read his post and felt "normal" for the first time since Monday.

You can find his writing here:

http://deusexmalcontent.blogspot.com/2007/04/and-all-that-could-have-been.html

Here's what I wrote to Chez today:

Thanks, friend. When tragedy struck an Amish schoolhouse not terribly far from Near Philadelphia, I was almost frozen with the sadness, the horror, the absolute awfulness of it. I wrote, I donated, I prayed.

When Virginia Tech happened earlier this week, I was appalled more at my own reaction than at the event itself: I had no feelings at all. I said to myself something like, "Oh, another school shooting." All week this has bothered me -- my lack of humanity.

Last night I had the courage to mention it to my sister, who confessed to the same response.Neither of us liked to think that we had become inured to the absolute shit that some people are capable of doling out.

And so I sit here at my desk this morning, reading your post, so beautifully done, with the tears rolling down the cheeks, amidst a potpourri of feelings: profound sadness at the loss of this lovely young life with all of its potential, thankfulness to you for your gifted writing, and relief that indeed, I've not become dull to pain and horror but rather that there is so much of it that it takes time to process it.

A couple of hours later, I heard from Paul who was struggling with different questions. He wrote:

Am I the only one who feels this way?

The Virginia Tech incident is a great tragedy, and deserves our prayers, but:

1- why is all the attention on the shooter and not the victims?

2- Don't 32 people a day or more die by violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, etc? Where's the prayer vigils for them?

Paul's questions are important ones. And they aren't rhetorical. For Paul isn't burdened by artifice. I don't have answers for those questions. I don't think anyone does, really. I can only use them as a start for reflection.

I was relieved, throughout the day, as I checked the CNN website to find they were showing pictures of the Virginia Tech victims, thankful that the focus was at last on them, and I hope that Paul will read Chez's piece.

I went back in time, way back, to Kent State, too. Joe had been a student there and when the shootings occurred he was on a four-year leave of absence from his studies, serving in the U.S. Navy. I remember being glued to the television, in disbelief.

I remember back at the time of 9/11, sitting for hours in front of the television, sobbing, but unable to pull myself away. The numbers were too large to grasp, but from time to time, there would be a portrait -- pictorial and verbal -- of one of the lives lost on that day, and hearing the details was wrenching. I feel a little bit that way today.

As to question two, there are two things that come to mind:

a. On the old Aaron Brown 10 o'clock news, midway through the program, silently would come across the screen the names and photographs of those United States military heroes who had died that day, that week Hearing the numbers has become meaningless, but the particularity, the names, the faces, makes it real.

and

b. Paul, if you want to start one, I'll join you.