Everyone’s thinking about it, everyone’s talking about it. And I’ve realized, from reading blogs and having conversations, that for each individual there is something in particular about the situation that resonates and becomes the focus. From Stephanie who attended Virginia Tech, to PisecoSis who works in academia and was also (gasp) an English major, to friends-of-friends who are concerned about the impact within the Korean community, it means something different to each of us.
For me, it brings back sharp memories of the college shooting that took place when I was in school. The shooter was a friend-of-friends; two of my friends in particular were shaken by her actions and what that implied about her own struggles. One of the wounded was an acquaintance from a speech class; we were all worried both about his physical recovery and whether he would ever find the courage to return to the university. The “hero” of the story (who physically stopped the shooter from shooting again) dated a friend of ours and so also became a friend, coming on vacation with us. For a time, we obsessively asked him about the incident because he was the only one around us who had seen it with his own eyes.
So for me, personally, any incident like this brings about a reliving of that time. Not just the one frightening day but the days, and weeks, and months that came after when the reverberations were still felt in our daily lives.
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