GRIEF AND A TRIBUTE

I was thrilled that my 12-year-old son Thomas would be going to his first overnight summer camp at my alma mater, Virginia Tech. It had been many years since I had been back to Blacksburg, and I was looking forward to returning for a visit. And after the tragic shooting events of April 16, 2007, I felt even more compelled to revisit the campus.

We took Thomas to camp on a hot day in late June. When we arrived in Blacksburg, we met with family members who were also Virginia Tech alumni. Everyone was excited about being back and pleased with Thomas’ choice in summer camps (you would have thought he was going off to college!). But we were also apprehensive about being on the campus. A lot had changed.

There were new buildings, new streets, new parking garages, and new gardens. And yet, there were the familiar places that provided us comfort in knowing that not everything about Virginia Tech had been changed. It made us glad for the opportunity to share our campus tour with each other. As we walked, we told stories, we shared our past, we laughed, and we reconnected. We were not prepared for the sudden mood change as we approached the top center of the Drill Field.

There we saw the 33 makeshift memorials that had been created (we learned later that a group of students had “borrowed” the Hokie stones from nearby hills for the memorial). A helpless silence passed through us as we came upon the stones that had been arranged in a semicircle in the grass. Each of the 32 stones had a name placard, a way to associate that stone with a person, a life. Mementoes, candles, pictures, and trinkets were left on and around each of the stones. A 33rd stone sat alone on the left end of the semicircle, unnamed, but known.

As I was tearfully looking at the lives of these people through the items that had been left behind, I noticed what resembled a two-inch crystal ball on a small gold base. It was sitting in the top center of one of the stones. Then I looked around at all the other stones and saw that they all had this same crystal piece. I examined the crystal ball more closely. It sparkled in the summer sun, and I realized it was a small doorknob. Someone had left the victims a way to exit this life and enter a new life.

In today’s Bible reading, Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

— Kathy Sours

Courtesy of The Church of the Good Shepherd United Methodist