07313
May 25, 2007

Seeking and finding comfort

Presbyterian Virginia Tech student reflects on week of tragedy

by Michelle Skeen
Virginia Tech Class of '09

BLACKSBURG, VA — I am proud to say that I am a student at Virginia Tech. I am also a member of Cooper House, the Presbyterian Student Fellowship on campus.

     In the past weeks, my fellow Coopers and I have been through a difficult time of loss, but also a time of strength and unity. I want to express our thanks to our greater church family for all your condolences and support. I also want to explain that, although living through this great tragedy has been beyond painful, it has strengthened my faith in God and his people.

      I believe the best way to show this to you is to take you through our week. There is no better place to begin than the morning of April 16.

     I was fortunate enough to have been in my dorm in lockdown instead of in class. As events unfolded, we learned about the deaths of our classmates through email and the news. The death toll seemed to increase every time I looked at the television screen — one dead, seven dead, fifteen, twenty, thirty-two.

     Cell phone lines were jammed. I had difficulty getting through to my parents, much less my friends on campus. One by one they returned to their rooms from class, signing onto the Internet to spread the word that they were alright.

     Cooper House is a very close group of students. We go to church together, we meet on Tuesdays for dinner and discussion, and we hang out together on the weekends. So, naturally, those were some of the first people I checked on.

     Everyone returned to their rooms except for our friend Heidi, a freshman who had been in French class. She never came back.

     The rest of the day was mostly a blur. We found out that Heidi had been shot but was in stable condition. We gathered at Cooper House, at a loss of what to do, just knowing that we had to be together. We hugged, we cried, we prayed. We sat in a hospital waiting room, knowing that we couldn’t see our friend but waited anyway.

     I watched my friends receive difficult phone calls. I gripped hands until they hurt, I let tears fall onto my shoulder, and I witnessed pain only visible when young, innocent lives are taken.

     Then, when we didn’t know what else to do, we sought the only place of comfort and safety we could think of. Cooper House went to church.

     I sat in that church pew, shaking so hard my friend John had to put his arm around me, and prayed. I prayed for people who had lost loved ones. I prayed for Heidi. I prayed for Blacksburg. I didn’t know what else to do.

     Often in times of tragedy that we turn our backs on God. We ask questions. Why my school? Why my friends? Where was God when 32 people were taken from us in such brutality?

     These questions are unanswerable. But the following Sunday at Blacksburg Presbyterian Church, associate pastor Susan Verbrugge spoke words that stuck with me: God’s heart was the first to break on April 16.

     It is easy to try to place blame, to be overwhelmed with grief, to hate God for what happened. But the truth is, that without God I would have not made it through that week.

     In the days that followed, I spent every waking moment that I could with Cooper House. We stayed in each other’s apartments, ate food that had been sent in from church members all over the community, and received hugs and support from people we didn’t even know. It was a very odd feeling to walk into Cooper House and see visitors with “Presbyterian Disaster Relief” written across their jackets. We had become victims.

     It is hard to see how something good could come out of all of this. The best way I can explain it is the candlelight vigil that was held on the drillfield. I was with several of my fellow Hokies, including Cooper House members and our minister Catherine Snyder. Thousands of people held their candles to the sky, remembering those who had fallen. And then a cheer of “Let’s Go Hokies!” spread throughout the crowd. I chanted through my tears.

     We were hurting. But we were strong. Instead of fragmenting in the face of hard times, Hokies united together with a bond I don’t believe the nation has ever seen before. We were there for our friends, and we were there for strangers. We were not beaten.

     If you were able to ask any of those 32 people who were killed on April 16th, I believe they would tell you they were proud to be Hokies. All were amazing persons, with hopes and dreams and great lives ahead of them. We will miss them.

     But under every thundercloud, the sun is still shining. The week of April 16, it shined in the concerned faces of Hokies all across the nation, whether they attended Virginia Tech or not. It burned brightly with candles not only at the vigil in Blacksburg, but at the University of Virginia, James Madison University, and at schools across the country. It shone through the cards, banners and memorials sent in to Cooper House from Presbyterians all over.

     And it is this unity, this outpouring of love and compassion, that makes me believe that no matter what happens, God will be there. People will care about each other. And in times where words cannot express the pain we are feeling, there is hope that tomorrow we will rise again, hate will be replaced with love, and faith will prevail.