At this point I am unsure of how to say what I am feeling … my community has been rocked. I don’t live in Blacksburg, VA but I might as well … I live in a sleepy college town and I spend all of my time in higher education. I know these kids — not the ones from Tech, but students just like them who are too young to really know what is going on around them … but yet old enough to know all too well what they are feeling. I feel for them and I want to find a way to reach out to them all.

I am hurting and I am saddened by the images I see on TV. I am dismayed at the lack of answers to the questions our media is asking and I have to ask myself how can this happen to so many innocent people. Several of my colleagues here at PSU have said that they haven’t felt this way since 9/11 … I haven’t either. What terrifies me is that we have a reference point for this kind of feeling.

I look into the eyes of my two children, babies really, and am horrified that they have to grow up in a place like this. A place where violence and death is real. A place where hate is palpable … a place where going to work in the greatest city in the world or attending classes in the Blue Ridge Mountains has become deadly. I am just at a loss for words and thoughts. My heart goes out to all the families of the victims … my heart goes out to all the students, faculty, and staff of VA Tech … my heart goes out to all of us.

I hope we can all look down the road and decide it is time to think differently about things like mental health, gun control, privacy, protection, service, and so much more … I am sick of political perspectives and I am sick of apathy. We are all members of our communities — higher education, towns, cities, whatever … it is time to step up. I am not sure if this is the last post I make on this subject, but I can guarantee it will not be my last thought. I am sorry to go off topic here, but at this moment, writing is the only thing that is keeping me from crying.

The greatest thing I have heard through all this is, “today, we are all VA Tech Hokies.”