It's the first day of classes at Virginia Tech since Seung-Hui Cho took the lives of 32 innocents and his own one week ago today.
The day on campus has hardly been normal. Normal days don't begin with tributes to slain members of the Virginia Tech family.
BLACKSBURG, Va. -- Thousands of Virginia Tech students and faculty filled the center of campus Monday to pay solemn tribute to the victims of last week's massacre — listening quietly as a bell tolled for the dead on the day classes resumed at the grief-stricken school.
An antique 850-pound brass bell was installed on a limestone rostrum for the occasion, and 33 white balloons were released into the air in memory of the 32 victims and the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho. About 1,000 balloons in Virginia Tech colors — maroon and orange — were also released.
"I've been back with my friends, but I don't know how it's going to feel, seeing the empty seats in the classroom, noticing the people who aren't here anymore," said David Patton, a 19-year-old freshman who was friends with two victims. "I'm wondering where they are now, if they are in heaven, and when I'll see them again."
The chimes of the bell echoed through the campus, covered with a week's worth of memorials and tributes to the students, including flowers, writings and candles.
The bell rang at 9:45 a.m., around the time when Cho killed 30 students and faculty members in a classroom building before committing suicide. The tribute lasted 11 minutes, as the bell rang for each of the victims and Cho.
As the crowd broke up, people started to chant, "Let's Go Hokies" several times.
...A moment of silence was also observed at about 7:15 a.m., near the dormitory where Cho's first victims, Ryan Clark and Emily Hilscher, were killed.
In front of the dorm, a small marching band from Alabama played "America the Beautiful" and carried a banner that read, "Alabama loves VT Hokies. Be strong, press on."
Afterward, a group of students and campus ministers brought 33 white prayer flags from the dorm to the school's War Memorial Chapel. They placed the flags in front of the campus landmark and adorned them with pastel-colored ribbons as the Beatles' song "The Long and Winding Road" played through loudspeakers.
...On the main campus lawn stood a semicircle of stones — 33 chunks of locally quarried limestone to remember each of the dead.
Someone left a laminated letter at Cho's stone, along with a lit purple candle.
"Cho, you greatly underestimated our strength, courage and compassion. You have broken our hearts, but you have not broken our spirits. We are stronger and prouder than ever. I have never been more proud to be a Hokie. Love, in the end, will always prevail. Erin J."
In all of these tributes, Cho is included -- the tolling of the bell 33 times, the releasing of 33 white balloons, the displaying of 33 white prayer flags and 33 chunks of limestone in remembrance of the dead.
Question: Was 33 the right number?
Should the killer be memorialized alongside his victims?
Recall the Columbine controversy.
Creating a suitable, permanent memorial to the victims of the Columbine High School massacre will be a daunting task. Greg Zanis, a good man trying to do the right thing, made the point dramatically if inadvertently last week.
Zanis is the Illinois carpenter who builds crosses to honor victims of violence across the country. He has built about 200 since 1996, when his own father-in-law was murdered, and last week his mission brought him to Denver. Zanis put up crosses in memory of those who died at Columbine, and the site, on a hill in Clement Park, soon became a magnet for the thousands who gathered to mourn the victims.
What surprised many onlookers, and angered some, was that the carpenter put up 15 crosses — 13 for the victims of the shooting and two for the killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. "They (the killers) had a mom and a dad," he said at the time. "They had friends. I think everyone has lost here." His point was valid, and generous in spirit. But as Zanis himself later recognized, honoring the victims and remembering the killers in one location strikes the wrong note, especially for the grieving families and friends of the 13 innocent people who died at Columbine.
Brian Rohrbough, whose son Daniel was among the victims, took matters into his own hands last Friday; he removed and destroyed the crosses erected in memory of Harris and Klebold. After that, Greg Zanis hauled away the remaining crosses and left town, regretting that his well-meaning gesture had upset some of the very people he wanted to support.
Does it strike the wrong note to honor the victims and the killer?
Should there be a distinction made between the innocent lives lost and the one guilty of taking them?
I think so.
But memorials really serve a purpose for the survivors of the dead.
Cho's family is grieving, too. I don't know how they will ever come to terms with what Cho did.
My prayers are with all the grieving families.
Forgiveness is truly a divine act.
2 comments:
What goes up must come down, usually, and that is the case with balloons... when they're released into the sky, eventually they come down somewhere on Earth -- as trash.
I wonder why the people who organized today's remembrance ceremony felt it would be okay to openly litter. Would they throw away fast food wrappers from the window of their car? Drop trash as they walk across campus? But it's okay to release balloons into the sky that will come down somewhere as trash??!?
You sound like a "one square of toilet paper" type of person.
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