Nicolette’s Design Diary

I first became aware of the shootings while surfing the Internet when I ran across a news story about it on the BBC web site. Just as I was wondering how a local story could end up on the BBC web site, the calls started coming in from my mother, my husband, and friends who were alumni of Tech and Radford and I quickly learned about the magnitude of the shooting. We made a couple calls to some friends who lived in the area to make sure they were all right and to find out what was going on.

The rest of the day was just surreal. My husband works at one of the state universities in our area told me that the school went on lockdown right after news of the shootings broke. A lot of students from the Hampton Roads area goes to Virginia Tech, and their stories started hitting our local news. As I was watching the news that night, it suddenly occurred to me that years ago that while we were attending Radford, we were in front of the TV watching the Columbine shootings unfold. Now a couple years later, it was like some kind of horrible deja vu, only it happened in a place that I was very familiar with.

With the national and local news coverage we’ve been getting here you can’t help but to keep up with the whole tragic mess. And there are some days where I just don’t want to know anymore. It was hard to watch when the stories and pictures of the victims started coming out…having been on campus and in the buildings, it’s far too easy for me to visualize and to imagine what it might have been like if I was in their place. The story about Professor Librescu, the Virginia Tech professor who was killed blocking the doorway to his classroom to save his students makes me want to burst into tears every time I hear about it. I can only hope I’d be that brave in a situation like that.

But as terrible as the whole week has been, some good has come out. It’s great to see how the whole community at Virginia Tech has pulled together. Schools in our area had organized vigils in memory of the victims, people in our neighborhood had put out their Virginia Tech flags in their front yards. Makeshift memorials have popped up all throughout the area. And the news about how the Tech marching band serenaded the shooting victims right on the hospital grounds just made me smile.

So on this day…the official day of mourning day for those who lost their lives at Tech, I’m wearing my orange and maroon ribbon and writing this post in honor of them. To the victims and their families, and the whole Tech community our thoughts are with you and stay strong…

…GO HOKIES!

P.S. The tribute image I used in this post was kindly provided by artist Susan Reynolds. She also has this image in a sheet of stamps that you can download and use. Visit her site here