a year later

Sometimes I can't decide if a year is all the time in the world, or no time at all. It seems like yesterday and it seems like eons ago that the shootings at Virginia Tech claimed 32 lives. One of the victims was a classmate of mine, a boy I knew since I was in kindergarten. We were never close, but he was a nice boy. We climbed my grandmother's trees as kids, rolled down hills and played cops-and-robbers-type games in the woods that covered every spare inch of our neighborhood. In high school we had the same classes, hung out with the same kids, went to the same parties. I grew up in the same town with the same 40 kids my entire life. Everyone knew everyone, everyone had a memory of someone since that person was old enough to remember. By default, we were all connected.

It's weird to have a memory of someone as a small child, and a memory of the day and the way that person died. In part, it's weird to know that there are things that person will never do or see or experience. There are stupid things, like songs and vacation destinations, etc. But also bigger things -- he'll never get married, for instance, or have a child. Maybe he wouldn't have anyway, but there was always at least the possibility. And that's gone now.

Mostly I think the disconnect comes from having heard so many stories about people others have known who've died. There's a sort of distance in the way we talk about the dead. It's as though they're characters in a book; they become one-dimensional characters in our recounting. It makes it difficult to believe they actually existed. But this kid was real -- he can't be the same as the kids from my parents' high school classes who died young. Right?

Tears pooled in my eyes as I read the news a year ago. I cried not just for this boy, but for all the families: for all the mothers and fathers who would have to bury their children, which I'm told is the most painful thing a person can live through; for all the siblings who had lost their childhood playmates and closest adult confidants, the only person who would or even could share a bond that strong with them; for all the friends and boyfriends and girlfriends who would have to delete contact information and remind themselves for months that their friend could not be there to appreciate an inside joke or a favorite pastime. How could someone be so selfish, so inhumane? How could someone open fire on rooms full of innocent kids?

All things, however awful, will eventually pass. The beautiful thing about people is their resilience. For all the tears their loved ones shed, there are happy memories that last forever, and those will help to heal them. Irreplaceable things have been lost forever, but life goes on, people heal (more or less), and everyone smiles again in the end. We move on, memories in tow.

One year later, I'm thankful I'm still alive to see this beautiful day. And I'm sorry Dan had to miss it.