A Little Closer to Home

As with the rest of this country, and points beyond, I've been listening to (NPR) and watching (Headline News, some NBC) the information on the horrendous Virginia Tech tragedy as the media and authorities continue discovering the background, and sharing with us the grief of a wounded community.

There are plenty of pages and sites and blogs out there chronicling the still-open, weeping wound at the heart of this body of students, faculty, and administration. I can hardly supplement them, nor expect any words of my own to rise above the sea of voices already speaking to all of us. I do ache sorely for the survivors – the wounded inside – and for those whose hearts are supporting these people.

Since my older daughter graduated from college less than two years ago, and my younger one will be going to college herself in barely a year and a half, I do see the two of them among these suffering young people. These are their contemporaries in the US, companions in FaceBook and MySpace, downloaders of the same music, wearers of the same clothing and fans of the same teams and movies and TV shows. Among them, too, are two nieces in college right now (one overseas).

Shelly, my older daughter, has a friend who's a grad student at Virginia Tech; she established early on that he had been nowhere near the scenes of the brutal attacks. Had anyone she knows been at any kind of risk, or suffering any great kind of wound of body or soul from this tragedy, she would have broken all Bonneville Flats records getting to Blacksburg just to hold them and weep with them.

Beyond this friend of hers, I found yesterday that a coworker-friend has a daughter there, who also (thank God) had been far away from the terrible carnage. This woman's eyes welled up in tears as she told me this yesterday – and tears not of an understandable relief, but rather of an ongoing worry.

This is a mother whose child had been too close to a particularly personal, brutal danger of death; I sensed she'll continue feeling powerless to protect her daughter until she and her husband make it down there this weekend (they'd made some event and hotel reservations months ago); it's all a matter of enduring the slow crawl of hours, and being buoyed by the regular reassurances of her girl's voice, until this mother and father can hold her in their arms again.

And I found out only this afternoon that one of my cousins, Geoffrey Swab, a PhD student, has been at Virginia Tech for a few years, and had been on campus during the horrific events on Monday. My sister forwarded me an email from him, and I responded directly to him, feeling largely powerless (though with far less an intensity than my haunted-looking coworker, of course!) to be of any help with what must be quite an inner burden.

Below are our emails, including the links he provided, as well as my response to him. I've edited very little, and have not changed his name (as I ordinarily do here for common-sense reasons of privacy and relative anonymity).

 

From: Jeff Swab
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 10:47 PM
To: Jeff Swab
Subject: VT Shootings Info - Update

Everyone,
(Please forward any of the past and future e-mails related to this to anyone as you see fit. Some e-mail addresses I don't have at home, and I didn't mean to leave anyone out. I've been using addresses I have on my home computer. Here's more info, in no particular order. I wasn't on campus Tuesday and for most of Wednesday, so I'm not trying to be news central.)

I went to campus early this evening, while it was still sunny out, and walked around the various memorials on the Drillfield for a couple hours. I took a bunch of pictures. I plan to post them soon, but I think I need to set up a Comcast site because my VT Filebox site is almost maxed-out with the other photos. For those of you in Blacksburg, if you haven't walked around the memorials and all the signs with notes, I recommend you do that. I'll let you know when I have the other photos up. I plan to go by AJ on Friday when the weather is better (if it rains Thursday). Here is the link to my first site if you didn't get my first e-mail: http://filebox.vt.edu/users/swab/ 

I've heard that some of the ENGE faculty knew some of the deceased, faculty and students. I haven't spoken with most of my students, but one told me on Tuesday that he had three friends who died.

VT's Collegiate Times posted some of my photos and captions on their "Hokies 4/16" memorial site. Here's the link to the photos page: http://hokies416.wordpress.com/tag/photography/

Wikipedia has info. You should be cautious when looking at Wikipedia stuff, so I'm not sure about the reliability of their info, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre

On the main page (so far) of the Hokies 4/16 site, there's a video under "Uncut Media Footage." I think its several clips a news station put together, and includes the cell phone video with the sounds of gunshots. The caption says you can hear 27 shots. Chilling, after realizing what was actually happening. http://hokies416.wordpress.com/

I think this drawing will make everyone cry. It shows the mascots of all the VA universities around the VT Hokie bird. http://www.lansingcartoons.com/images/hokies.JPG

As of this moment, I haven't seen the NBC evening news, but it is on-line. The shooter sent NBC a video manifesto and other things during the two hour gap between shootings. I'm sure it'll be on the Today Show in the morning. It's pretty disturbing to see this and related photos/screen captures on related sites.
http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=925bc281-ce20-439e-9682-8cc58066b2bf&f=00&fg=copy
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/
http://www.accesshollywood.com/news/ah4942.shtml?dst=rss|general_rss
- Jeff

At my desk I dropped everything I was doing and sent back to him:

Jeff:

My sincerest condolences!

I'd lost track of the fact that you're out of Virginia Tech now – and so I'm particularly relieved to know you weren't directly caught up in the horror and tragedy that was thrust onto your campus – and students, colleagues, and friends – and our nation's heart – on Monday.

I'd like to put your links up on my blog, if you're okay with that. My readership might be four people on a good day (that's counting myself at least twice), so admittedly the info will likely not reach much further. But pain shared even a little is pain softened just a bit.

Hang in there; if I can do anything (either from home or work), please don't hesitate to let me know.

Regards,

AgingChild

Jeff was amazingly quick in responding:

From: Jeff Swab
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2007 4:11 PM
Subject: Re: VT Shootings Info - Update

AC,
Thanks for your note. I'll keep you up to date.

Feel free to post links, photos, or whatever. Once I get another/a better site up with as much photos and links as I can post, I'll let everyone know the address.

Regarding my status at VT, I came back here in Fall 2004 to finish my PhD. Three years later, I should finish shortly; hopefully within the next month, but surely no later than this summer. I looked for university jobs over the last few months, interviewed, received an offer, but still want to interview with one more place. I'm about to start the salary negotiation stage with the one university I'd like to work at, but I want to see what my chances are at the other university. I'll keep everyone up to date on my job status, too.

- Jeff

I recall now that this isn't the first time his immediate family was peripheral to terrible, senseless tragedy. Nearly twenty years ago – just before Christmas, 1988, PanAm Flight 103 was blown up over Scotland, taking the lives of nearly 200 people on the plane and on the ground.

The following is not much, nor on the personal scale of what's happened this week, but Jeff's mother was on the very last Flight 103 before that one, having boarded in Frankfurt. Her Christmas gifts to her own family, and nieces and nephews (including this one) were especially precious that year.