Tuesday, April 17, 2007

No jokes today

Hi everybody,

I'm gonna break away from this "we" thing and speak as "I" today.

I've never been good with tragedy. I know that sounds funny. But I don't really know how to react it. Not so much emotionally -- I've never really expressed much emotion at all anyway. More so the etiquette of it, if that makes sense.

Was it acceptable to laugh at jokes yesterday? Acceptable to try to push the massacre to the back of our minds? Maybe those are stupid questions.

But like I said, I just don't really know how to react it. I felt it was best to avoid dick and hooker jokes today.

Something like yesterday's events is not only terribly tragic, but it's horrifying as well. I'm not far removed from being on a college campus where something like this could have happened.

And what are we to do? It's a helpless feeling. There'll likely be places to donate money and all that, but I find that sort of insulting. You can't put a price tag on a life.

In times like this, how the preciousness of life can be taken away with the pull of a trigger is horrifically illuminated, you just need to remember what's important in life. Family. Friends.

It's instances like this, where sports rightfully take a back seat to real life shit, that make you realize how fortunate you are for what you have, and that cherishing each day, cliché as it is, is as important as ever.

EDSBS, in an outstanding post, put it best: "It’s impossible to write something adequate about evil -- which this undoubtedly was."

And while I'm still unsure how to handle and react to a horrible tragedy as this, choosing to not ignore these events seems like the obvious choice.

We'll be back with sports tomorrow. For now, this is far more important.

Thanks for listening.

5 comments:

rstiles said...

I work on a college campus and everyone in my office was just stunned yesterday....

We all handle tragedy differently, but in the end, we all care...I just can't understand what made this young man do something like this...if he wanted to kill himself, why didn't he just go in the middle of campus and put a gun in his mouth....that is my 1 question - why?....why hurt so many innocent people just because this person had an inner demon that caused a rage...

All we can do is keep Va. Tech in our thoughts...

God Bless the students and employees of Va. Tech

Ray said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ray said...

When I was at school, I felt like the campus was a world unto itself. Though we were technically in Dayton, Ohio, I felt there was the city of Dayton and also the University of Dayton. I felt safe in that city within a city. I think that feeling of security through community is fairly pervasive across most college campuses. This is a stark reminder that a horrific event such as this can happen anywhere.

We're all Hokies.

wjackalope said...

well said big guy.

THN said...

Everybody reacts in different ways. There is no reason to apologize for it.