If I Don’t Make It, I Love You

AMYE AND I spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours listening to accounts of families torn apart by gun violence, including how parents could only recognize their children’s faces by specific markings on their bodies when no one else could. The horror of these stories crept inside us, and for me, while different in subject matter, triggered memories of my rape. As I spoke with survivors about their experiences, my own story naturally intertwined.

When I interviewed Joe, I’d spoken to more than a dozen survivors about the deaths of their loved ones. Speaking to Joe was special, though. He was one of the first fathers I talked to about losing his daughter to gun violence. His daughter Reema was killed at Virginia Tech in 2007. Over the phone, Joe focused on Reema’s life rather than her death. She loved dance and theater, and had a passion for culture and languages like French. How did you get into this work? Joe asked. Now I faced my own silence.

I started having more interest in trauma after I was raped. I channeled my suffering into storytelling, which was how I rearranged the scattered pieces of my life. With this project, I yearned to help others do the same. But to do this, I would have to be honest with myself, and become just as much of a participant in this project as those I was interviewing.

“Did you tell your parents?” Joe asked.

“I only told my mother and my sister,” I replied.

“Why not your father?”

A question I often asked myself, but never answered.

“I don’t think he could handle it,” I said.

“But we want to know what you’re going through,” he said. “We want to help.”

After I hung up with Joe, he sent me photos of his daughter, Reema. They were a mixture of dance, prom, and family photos. All without captions. I go through them one by one. Joe looks happy next to his full family. For a moment, I think Reema is still alive.

I email him back, acknowledging receipt of the photos he’s sent me.

Joe replies: Thanks for sharing your story and hope that you continue to live in peace and are able to talk to your dad at some point.

But as my mind affirmed the positive and important work we were doing, my body had other plans. And in July 2018, after close to a year of collection, I was diagnosed with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). My doctor confirmed that while GERD is not solely caused by stress it’s an exacerbator. For weeks after my diagnosis, I struggled to eat and keep food down. The days that included hours of interviewing, coaching, transcribing, phone and email communication, and site visits were the most physically painful for me. By the end of the week, my stomach was in flames.

As Amye and I took a deeper dive into survivors’ lives, we took on their pain. Vicarious trauma was what our therapists diagnosed. According to the American Counseling Association, vicarious trauma “is the emotional residue of exposure that counselors have from working with people as they are hearing their trauma stories and become witnesses to the pain, fear, and terror that trauma survivors have endured.” This definition resonated with us. Finally a name for what we’d been experiencing—a name we both shared.

As we got closer to the end, my anxiety manifested in different ways. I had a dream about one of the young men, Jeremy Herbstritt, killed at Virginia Tech. I’m in his garden and it’s flourishing. The smells are alive. He smiles at me, and then more dead appear, all cheering me on: dead parents, teachers, and children. All faces from photos shared with me by the families. Was this an approval? Were they telling me to keep going knowing I was doubting if I could go on? Was this the sign I was waiting to receive after asking every day if what I was doing was Okay? I took it.

LOREN KLEINMAN, EDITOR

JANUARY 2019

The following students and staff were shot and killed at
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University:

Ross Alameddine, 20, student

Christopher James “Jamie” Bishop, 35, German instructor

Brian Bluhm, 25, graduate student

Ryan Clark, 22, student

Austin Cloyd, 18, student

Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, 49, professor of French

Kevin Granata, 45, professor of Engineering

Matthew Gwaltney, 24, graduate student

Caitlin Hammaren, 19, student

Jeremy Herbstritt, 27, graduate student

Rachael Hill, 18, student

Emily Hilscher, 19, student

Matthew La Porte, 20, student

Jarrett Lane, 22, student

Henry Lee, 20, student

Liviu Librescu, 76, professor of Engineering

G. V. Loganathan, 53, professor of Engineering

Partahi Lumbantoruan, 34, graduate student

Lauren McCain, 20, student

Daniel O’Neil, 22, graduate student

Juan Ortiz, 26, graduate student

Minal Panchal, 26, graduate student

Daniel Perez Cueva, 21, student

Erin Peterson, 18, student

Michael Pohle Jr., 23, student

Julia Pryde, 23, graduate student

Mary Karen Read, 19, student

Reema Samaha, 18, student

Waleed Shaalan, 32, graduate student

Leslie Sherman, 20, student

Maxine Turner, 22, student

Nicole White, 20, student

THE REMINDER

By Jody McQuade

Jody McQuade is the mother of Virginia Tech shooting survivor Sean McQuade. Sean was critically injured during the shootings at Virginia Tech.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following information cited in Jody’s essay was taken from information received from the media and police reports.

It’s sad knowing that life could’ve been different, and even sadder still that Virginia Tech will not admit wrongdoing. Therefore no one will ever tell Sean they’re sorry for changing the course of his life. To this day, he still deals with issues with his eye and lack of hearing. The surgeries have not corrected facial movements as a result of the gunshot wound to his face.

Some Virginia Tech officials locked down their offices at least twenty minutes before the shooter burst into Norris Hall and killed thirty people—and even before a campus-wide alert was issued about his first two killings in another building. Emails from the co-director of the university office responsible for its emergency planning showed the first victims’ building was on lockdown and that some officials knew “there [was] an active shooter on campus”—while top officials were saying they saw no need to suspend classes or lock down the campus.

Emails were released by lawyers for the families of several victims who agreed to a settlement with the state in 2008. Among other things, the agreement called on top university officials to meet families and victims and explain their actions during the worst campus massacre in U.S. history. One email was sent a minute before a campus-wide alert urged people “to be cautious” after what it called a “shooting incident” at West Ambler Johnston Hall. The alert had also been toned down from an earlier draft that proposed disclosing one student had died and another was injured, according to a memo released by the lawyers. The shooter killed two people at the dormitory. Shortly after the alert went out, but before the shooter chained the doors at Norris Hall and started shooting, the same official forwarded the alert to colleagues at nearby public school systems and added: “Unofficial word is that two people have died and the shooter is still at large. Tactical teams are staging in Blacksburg. My building is in lockdown. Bombs, shootings. . . . I’m moving to a smaller town.”

Repeated efforts to reach Virginia Tech officials for comment were unsuccessful. Douglas Fierberg, one of the lawyers for the families, said one professor had phoned her husband shortly after he dropped her off at work that day—about an hour and fifteen minutes before the shooter started his rampage in Norris Hall—to say her building was on “quasi lockdown.” He said the families were upset that some university officials knew to protect themselves while allowing students and staff to walk into danger. Shortly after the lawyers disclosed the emails, Joseph Samaha, father of eighteen-year-old Reema Samaha, who was killed in the shootings, spoke to reporters: “We are acting on behalf of the departed and the injured, to say: ‘Never again.’” Samaha said the families thought the university should have given more-timely warnings of danger and more accurate descriptions of what that danger was. The families also felt the school ignored the risks posed by the shooter, by allowing him to return to the dorms after living off campus and by not taking action after he was charged with stalking female students, and professors complained about his bizarre behavior.

In a key part of the settlement, Virginia Tech officials promised to meet with families and fully explain their actions that day. Officials also promised a briefing on what they have done to improve safety, while the governor and attorney general agreed to outline what they were doing in response to the massacre. Former Virginia State Police Superintendent W. Gerald Massengill, who led the state task force that investigated the massacre, said he felt the university’s top officials waited too long to warn the campus and probably should have suspended classes and secured buildings after the first shooting. He said the investigation focused on top officials and was not looking at whether other offices went on lockdown. In the 2008 settlement, the state did not admit any liability for the deaths or injuries.

While I occasionally wrestle with sleepless nights, my mind wanders back to the beginning . . . the place where our family’s little world changed. I am thankful for the gracious support given to our family by the community and also not having to be the parent whose child didn’t make it home that day.

MISSOURI

By Jennifer Herbstritt

The following is an edited excerpt from Jennifer Herbstritt’s book Leaving Virginia, which chronicles her bike ride across America in honor of her older brother Jeremy, murdered at Virginia Tech.

MAY 27, 2008

Jeremy,

The scenery here reminds me of our hometown, Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. When I close my eyes, I see our century-old white farmhouse with black shutters.

When Dad and Mom purchased the farm back in May of 1988, I imagine they hoped to raise us there, and one day hand over property to one of us where we’d raise our own children, break bread together on weekends, and watch the grandchildren grow. The dreams Mom and Dad had for our futures were the foundation of what made our farm home.

We moved into that old house, the barely there neighborhood, in August of 1988. Remember when Mom worked the night shift at the hospital, and we got away with a lot while under Dad’s care? Dad was often occupied with the animals on the farm, or with our brother Joe, or sister, Stephanie. As the older siblings, we could’ve gotten away with pretty much anything. We had free rein. Certainly we missed Mom, and I always worried about her catching some disease at the hospital, but we had a ball watching football and baseball, playing catch, and being recruited to assist with projects inside the barn. You helped Dad in the barn, while I stayed in the house and watched Joe and Stephanie.

Soon, families started to move into newly built houses on the main road below our farm. A community was forming. And as a child, I loved meeting up with the other neighborhood kids at the softball fields at the end of our lane for a quick game of pickup on a hot summer day. I laugh about my girlfriends and I creating our own “Babysitters Club” at the park next door to those fields on a biweekly basis. We pushed one another in circles on the merry-go-round, played cops and robbers and tag in the dark. That park was the place we first formed friendships outside of our house and school. I wish I could return to those days. Life was painless then. Our biggest concerns so frivolous:

Would we have enough time after school to build up that jump (made out of snow piled three-feet deep and four-feet wide)? Would Mom and Dad catch us flying down over that jump in a line of six people, attached to one another by a sled’s rope tied around the waist?

Would Mom let us back in the house after she discovered you and I dug up the entire front yard in an attempt to “put in a swimming pool” while she was napping?

Would I tattle for the 550th time if you called me “ASTCBdoubleT” (Adult, Sheep Talker, Cry Baby, Tattle Tale) just one more time? And if I did, would Mom actually wash your mouth out with soap?

We were normal kids then. We played games like most. That house was our home. There’s something different about it now, though. Its vibe, eerie. But, you loved it. You loved that rickety old barn and those noisy animals. We all did.

I learned a lot about life in that barn and just as much about death. Oftentimes, the lambs wouldn’t survive through the cold winter months. It wasn’t uncommon for an ewe to have difficulty giving birth and for Dad (and later in life you, me, Joe, or Stephanie) to have to play obstetrician. Sometimes, we’d tube-feed premature lambs and accidentally place the milk into the lungs rather than into the stomach.

I think my experiences on that farm prepared me for your death. As much work as it was there, I loved it. It was home with our heights written on those walls. I can’t imagine you don’t miss Bellefonte with all of your heart. I do too. But for me, the thought of home is a painful reminder.

We stopped for lunch today in a town called Chester, the home of Popeye. I wished Dad was still with us here because Popeye was Dad’s childhood idol. One building, located in the center of Chester sticks out in my mind. It was covered in paintings of all the characters in the cartoon. We passed it as we biked toward a statue of Popeye in the park located on the east side of the Mississippi River.

After zipping by this statue, I waved goodbye to Chester and crossed the Mississippi on my bike. The instant we crossed the river into Missouri, I convinced myself a tornado would plow right through our paths. The sky was ominous. The storm was drawing nearer, the clouds had turned black and the thunder intensified. My heightened anxiety made crossing the Mississippi River all the more exhilarating. Within ten more miles of biking, the dark sky passed and we made it to our destination, Farmington.

I should mention, at the start of this trip I expected the people of Missouri to be your stereotypical, friendly, midwestern folk. To my dismay, the gas station attendants, waitresses, and drivers whom we came in contact with today were the exact opposite. Log truck drivers seemed to make a game out of pushing us off the road. Women driving station wagons with babies in the back seats seemed to do the same while adding a long, obnoxious loud horn to the equation. Waitresses would sigh rudely when I couldn’t make up my mind on my order, and attendants laughed at the fact we’d driven our car (albeit Joe) this far west despite the price of gas.

Please forgive me, but my anger has been building for months now. Take for instance the “cell phone company bitch,” as we’ve come to call her. Not more than eight weeks following your murder, we received a letter addressed to you stating your cell phone service was going to be deactivated because of your death.

Your cell phone recording was all we had left of your voice, other than the message you left on Mom and Dad’s machine the Friday prior to your death. We couldn’t bear to close your account. And when I called to explain, the woman with whom I spoke insisted on closing your account. She told me, “You have ten days and that will be that. It’s company policy.” Ten days left to listen to my beloved brother’s voice one last time!

Upon hearing this conversation and the emotion in my voice, my coworker, Kristi, took the phone and gave that woman a piece of her mind. The end result: I pay ten dollars extra each month to keep your account active. I’d pay anything to hear your voice.

Some people are jerks. The bastard who killed you was. He was an egotistical, self-seeking, worthless, poor excuse of human flesh. It disgusts me how every few days I hear of another person as selfish as him, willing to cowardly “sacrifice” his own life for the sole purpose of fulfilling his lifelong, pathetic dream of robbing hundreds, if not thousands, from a lifetime of happiness, joy, desires, and dreams. We coexist with evil people who could care less about us.

And don’t get me started on Virginia Tech. I realize one sociopath pulled the trigger to the gun and killed you, but at least a dozen people could’ve prevented thirty-two deaths, including yours. I wonder how they’d feel if their loved one were murdered?

After all we’ve been through, I honestly thought your killer’s private instructor would’ve personally apologized to all of us for not doing more. I would’ve thought the reciting of a poem entitled “We Will Prevail” could’ve been postponed past two days following your murder. How could anyone consider “prevailing” at such a time?

I also thought we’d be allowed to hold you tight as you lay still on that cold, metal table inside the cement walls of the morgue the minute we arrived on the premises, not seven days later. I also thought the senior university administrators acting as the Emergency Policy Group, who made the decision to delay notification of the first two students’ murders to your student body for approximately two hours thereafter would’ve cried with us, apologized relentlessly for their inaction—done everything in their power to ease our pain.

I didn’t expect your killer’s medical records to mysteriously disappear from the university’s counseling center. Nor would I expect to find myself frozen while in a settlement meeting with senior university officials where one policy group member wore a bulletproof vest and another admitted she informed her own family members of the first two shootings prior to sending out official notification to the entire campus. And I never expected the majority of the policy group members to stare blankly at me, tears in my eyes, while through a cracked voice, I kindly requested an apology. Those senior officials withheld information from the student body they felt crucial enough their own families needed to know. I wanted them to say: “I’m sorry. I failed you. No, I failed your loved ones. I’m sincerely sorry.”

In the weeks following your death, there was one man who stayed on the phone with me on multiple occasions totaling hours on end. He explained every single, solitary detail I needed to know about that terrible day: where were you lying and how he suspected you suffered, and if you were lying in a defensive position, your autopsy results, etc. He knew I needed this information. Otherwise, I’d haunt myself with such questions for my whole life. I needed the details.

He even returned all your belongings found on your body that day to our family. He jeopardized his job to provide us with the materials essential for our healing. He knew compassion, a genuine soul. I want my heaven to be filled with people like him, people who think first of others. I can want, can’t I?

Anger consumes me. Please help me sleep.

All my love,
Jenny

REMEMBERING JEREMY

By Margaret Herbstritt

Margaret Herbstritt is the mother of Jeremy Herbstritt who was shot and killed at Virginia Tech. Margaret continues to keep Jeremy’s memory alive through the annual event Herbie’s Home “TOWN LOOP,” a community run/walk and bike ride event through the Jeremy Herbstritt Foundation at
thejeremyherbstrittfoundation.com. The Herbstritt family also offers a scholarship annually to a high school senior and supports Rachel’s Challenge projects at high school and middle schools.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Challenge was started by Beth and Darrell Scott, parents of Rachel Joy Scott, who was the first person killed in the Columbine High School shooting on April 20, 1999. The foundation focuses on making schools safer. Learn more about the Challenge at rachelschallenge.org.

My son, Jeremy, was energetic, requiring little sleep, and short naps. He was a happy child with a sense of humor and a contagious laugh. He always wanted to go outside to play regardless the weather. His sister Jennifer was twenty-two months younger than him, and I usually had both children together since my husband traveled frequently for work. I remember one cold and snowy winter day when I dressed both toddlers in heavy winter gear and pulled them in a sled around the neighborhood.

Wind was strong that day in town and blew snow into their faces. Jeremy would laugh and laugh, and try to catch snowflakes in his mouth, and even though it was a short walk, Jennifer would cry and scream because it was “too cold.”

Once we returned home Jennifer was so happy, but Jeremy was disappointed. To ease his disappointment, I allowed him to bring a huge bucket of snow inside the house, where he happily played with it on the kitchen floor.

Jeremy never slowed down. He liked to “build things” with assorted blocks, and then later with Lincoln Logs. He didn’t walk. And instead went from crawling to climbing to running. He was somewhat uncoordinated, but persistent.

I encouraged time together as a family, which I myself experienced as a child. We had regular “game or puzzle” times. He especially liked the “mouse trap game,” because of the action feature. He also liked to play cards (usually a matching game), and later as an adult he would participate in card games with my parents and siblings, a German game called 500.

At age five, Jeremy had surgery to fix a hernia he had since birth. While waiting, I heard an overhead page “Code Blue in OR.” Being a nurse, I recognized that as “patient unresponsive, not breathing.” My mother’s instinct told me it was Jeremy. Before anyone came out of the OR, I ran through doors clearly marked “Authorized OR Staff Only.” I pushed past several male staff, and rushed to find Jeremy laying limp on a gurney. I resisted folks trying to get me to “leave sterile area.” I had to stay. I entrusted my son to these folks, his life, and they didn’t protect him. Staff revealed Jeremy had a reaction to the anesthesia and was in a coma. In later months, I learned the anesthesiologist made errors on three different children that day.

Near midnight, I saw no improvement in his condition, and told staff I wanted Jeremy transferred to another hospital. They argued and refused to listen. While I’m normally quiet, reserved, non-confrontational, I told the staff that this was not a discussion.

“Either you arrange transfer now, or I will call an administrator,” I said to hospital management.

An ambulance transported Jeremy to Akron Children’s Hospital, where he lay motionless for six days. I stayed at his bedside, while my husband returned to work. I had no cell phone, and didn’t sleep or eat much. I prayed, cried, talked to Jeremy, put my hand on his chest to feel his breathing. I wasn’t allowed to hold him.

One day staff said there was a bed opening next door at a Mennonite-run center for parents with ill children. There was no charge, but donations were welcome. Everyday they made a huge crock of homemade soup and fresh bread to keep up his strength. I was reluctant to leave his bedside, but staff convinced me there was a phone in the center, and they’d call me with any change.

I was so exhausted one night I didn’t remember falling asleep, and when I awoke it was mid-morning. I rushed to the hospital, and saw the nurse beside his crib.

Jeremy said, “Hi, mom.”

I cried and hugged Jeremy so hard he said, “That hurts!”

He had a long road ahead, but eventually recovered from the effects of respiratory arrest. Collectively, our family had to reteach him basics like how to walk (he was in a wheelchair), feed himself, and use the toilet. We used vocabulary words to help him name objects because Jeremy would point to something and make sounds only. I had to tell him Jennifer was his sister, and even point out his dog “Spot.” At times, during recovery, he’d stare off, looking puzzled, and then get angry, make loud sounds, and throw objects.

During Jeremy’s recovery, my husband’s aunt, Sister Helen, set up prayer chains for us. And several times the anesthesiologist came to our house and asked to see Jeremy. I wasn’t sure if he was concerned about him or getting sued since three of his patients that day ended up with complications and one died. Jeremy’s recovery was difficult, and I wasn’t sure he was going to get better.

Jeremy struggled with learning through elementary school, and at age sixteen, he told us he was going to drop out of school and work on a local dairy farm. He failed health class.

“I don’t like that class, Mom, so I don’t pay attention or study for exams,” he said. He was always very honest.

But his school habits improved when he attended Penn State and connected with group friends. It was there he immersed himself in studies. Frequently during his sophomore year, he asked if he could bring friends over to study. When everyone came over, I made a Crock-Pot of food, bought Bonfatto subs, and they’d eat, study, argue, and laugh. I enjoyed their combined energies. To this day, I still have contact with several of his friends from Penn State.

If I could spend one day with Jeremy, I’d be in the vegetable garden with him, smelling plants, feeling damp soil in my hands, and the sunshine against my back. I’d welcome our talking. I’d listen to the radio, Bob Dylan, and watch his dog chasing barn cats. Later we’d share a meal together. Jeremy would barbecue burgers or chicken on the grill. Side dishes would include ice cream, followed by sitting on the porch swing enjoying sounds of birds, and sharing laughter together. Jeremy always made the most of his day. He was cheerful, energetic, positive, helpful, lived each day like his last. Sadly, on April 16, 2007, on Easter Monday in our church, was Jeremy’s last day alive.

I talk to Jeremy throughout my “journey,” asking for guidance and direction, especially regarding his siblings. At the end of each day, I ask myself, “did I make a difference in the life of someone today?” “Did I perform my best at work or home, without complaining about trivial stuff?”

I will always remember the sound of his size twelve sneakers, leaping down the stairs at 4:00 a.m., pounding each step and waking up the household as he was leaving to go milk dairy cows at the neighbors. He worked hard, saved most of his money toward his college education. Some mornings I’d drive him to the farm, and sometimes I’d give him my car.

Forever, when I hear footsteps, when I see a red Jeep, when I see a cardinal, I think of Jeremy.

IT’S ONLY THE BEGINNING

By Joe Samaha

A lifelong resident of Northern Virginia, Joe Samaha and his wife, Mona, had three children: Omar, Randa, and Reema, who was shot and killed in the Virginia Tech shooting. Since the Virginia Tech tragedy, Joe and Mona have established scholarships and funds, including the Angel Fund, in memory of their daughter Reema. Joe has been a tireless advocate on behalf of the Virginia Tech families and serves as the first president of the Virginia Tech Victims Family Outreach Foundation (VTV). Learn more about the Samaha’s work at www.vtvfamilyfoundation.org.

We understand loss, heartbreak and trauma.

We understand the need for long-term care post aftermath.

There are stark realities that must be dealt with.

We never thought this would happen to us.

We never imagined this would be the life we’d be living.

That we’d be left to navigate this new territory alone.

When the police, media, and our extended family and friends go home and return to their own lives and move on to the next story, the next case, who can we turn to? Where is the help? The guidance? The support? How can we know what the future will hold?

The need for long-term care and response is equally important if not more important for families and survivors. Time is a factor and the ramifications and aftermath of the event all too often don’t present or impact individuals until years later. As one mother asked during the first few months following the loss of her daughter at the Virginia Tech shootings, “Who is going to take care of my mental health needs?”

Once the immediate needs are met by organizations or funds, long-term physical and mental health care support will continue for a lifetime. PTSD affects the family members of the deceased and those individuals who have been injured for years to come. Years later, surgeries are still being performed to extract bullet fragments from survivors and repair other long-term injuries. Ten years later moms, dads, and siblings still seek therapy. Should they be denied assistance simply because they don’t have the funds necessary to afford proper care?

Mass shootings like the ones at Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, and Pulse Nightclub, and so many more, affect such a wide array of individuals, and unfortunately, the reach is only growing. No matter your race, religion, socioeconomic status, gender, or age, you can experience gun violence. With that in mind, we are speaking to mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters, friends, and coworkers who may not have been affected by gun violence, but who understand it could become a reality given the current trend of mass shootings in the U.S.

I’m alive, but I’m not okay.

Just because you can’t see the trauma and wounds, doesn’t mean they’re gone.

This is not the end of our journey. It’s just the beginning.

A REEMA MIRACLE

By Mona Samaha

Mona Samaha is the mother of Reema Samaha, who was shot and killed at Virginia Tech.

Over the last decade, I’ve been learning how to heal from the pain of losing my daughter, Reema. However, I found myself struggling with PTSD more intensely in the years that followed.

At work, I struggled with memory loss, felt my heart beat faster and heavier, fearful for unexplained reasons. I blamed these feelings on work saying it’s the heavy workload at the school where I teach. Even falling asleep became a struggle. My mind spun at any time of the day. Stress had (has) taken a big part of my entire being. My other children left home to start their own life, so I had less responsibilities at home, leaving room for my anxiety. My moments of silence in my backyard became torture. I felt fear instead of peace. I fell deeper into a world of senseless disorientation, losing my self confidence.

I was in misery and no one was aware. To regain my peace, I had to constantly recollect myself and dissociate from my physical surroundings, from crying, and refer to my prayers and meditations. But such disassociation was not the solution. I needed to find balance between my internal and external worlds.

I struggled for three years, and with each year the symptoms worsened. The moment I would feel calm and happy about something positive in my life, I’d be reminded of the devastation. After Reema’s death, I learned there was no separation between life and death. Death is part of living. I disconnected from the material world and felt ready to die any time. My daughter went though this, after all. I felt torn between these two worlds and little by little I faded.

I needed to rediscover the beauty of life, to remember it’s a gift. I tried to do this through therapy, but meeting with my therapist who helped me tremendously at first, started to feel useless and stressful. With her I learned how to survive the grief, but I also had to learn how to enjoy life again. Any event I would normally look forward to like birthdays or family gatherings, depressed me. I doubted I could enjoy these moments with the amount of anxiety I was experiencing: a racing heart, distracted mind.

Then, in December 2017, around Christmastime, I asked Reema for help. A Reema miracle would pull me out of this mess, I thought. She was with me in my hardest time, why not now? A new sense of hope started to grow in me. I put my trust in Reema and surrendered myself to God’s love and peace. I received the blessings through events that I call gifts from God. One of these gifts were learning to celebrate life in my gratitude journal. Through this process of looking for things to celebrate, I was able to begin a new phase in my healing.

Like a child learning to walk, I went through a multitude of falls, followed by lessons learned. I discovered I needed to rid myself of my shell, my built-in survival mechanism preventing me from going deeper into my healing. In order to do that, I needed to practice presence. One of the ways that helped me with this was through collective music therapy. The sessions taught me how music can resituate us in the present. But after the music was over, my mind often reverted back to the sad moments, to the stress. I realized I was happier when listening to my heart instead of my mind. Understanding what made me happy was a big aha! moment: just because my mind was taking me back to the sadness, it didn’t mean I had to stay there. I had the power to make that shift, to make that change. This was not easy, but I promised myself to live a Reema miracle.

Learning how to live in the present is what’s helping me overcome my anxiety. I remind myself not to listen to my mind when it wanders to the traumatic state. I tell myself you are safe now. There is no need to be stressed. I remind myself managing PTSD is a process, and while I learned to mentally heal from my grief, my body felt its emotional pain. This is especially true for someone like me, who lost a loved one to sudden, senseless violence.

Today, I thank God for enlightening me with more understanding of the healing process. For being with me at every step of my journey. I thank God for my loving husband who’s always ready to comfort me with hugs. I thank Reema and my two surviving children—my reason to be these days. When I go to bed, I hold Joe’s hand and my rosary with the other. I keep Reema in my heart and pray for God to heal me with love and peace.

JOURNAL: THEN AND NOW

by Chase Damiano

On April 16, 2007, from about 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m, Chase Damiano’s French class barricaded the doors in Holden Hall, the building connected to Norris Hall, one of the major sites of the Virginia Tech shooting. He took many pictures with his cell phone, including the one below that originally appeared on Wikipedia, and shares his story behind the posted photo.

Upon release from the classroom, Chase went back to his dorm and wrote an account of the shooting called “April 16, 2007.” Now, at thirty years old, Chase talks about the legacy of the Virginia Tech shooting in the more recent account, “September 24, 2018.”

Huddled in my French classroom. (Photo originally appeared on Wikipedia.)

APRIL 16, 2007

9:50 A.M.

We started hearing sirens outside of our building, Holden Hall. We took it as nothing, for we hear police sirens around campus all the time. It was just slightly strange that we heard them during the day. Soon, the thirteen of us heard an ambulance in front of our building. We took it as another bomb threat—we had been getting bomb threats in April that ended up being hoaxes.

We started getting concerned when the sirens increased in volume. The professor looked out the window with us and we saw police cars and ambulances out on the drill field. Students were walking away from our building. Police officers were assembling on the sidewalk. Large black vans appeared.

Two women barged into our classroom. “There was a shooting this morning at West Ambler-Johnston. The shooter has gone into Norris and we are locking your door. Stay inside.” They then left. Norris Hall. The hall connected to Holden Hall, where I was. The two halls are in the same building. We were in danger. Students were now running away from McBryde, a nearby building. Students evacuated Patton Hall, the building directly in front of us right on the drill field. Students fled with hands on their heads; one girl even fell and hit her head on the sidewalk. All in fear.

Our professor told us to close the windows. To stay away from the windows and the door. We shut the blinds so we weren’t distracted by the events happening outside. We played a game in French so our minds could be at ease from the situation. It didn’t help. We were all wondering what was going on.

Gunshots were fired and we started to panic. We stopped playing our game and tried to figure out how to get the news on the projector. The main TV in the classroom didn’t work, but the projector, we knew, had cable connected to it. After some struggle, we pulled up CNN, Fox News, and the local news in Blacksburg. They all said the same thing at this point: one student dead, another person wounded. We looked at the screen with horrified faces. We shut off the lights and moved tables and chairs away from the “safest” corner in the room.

We gathered in this corner and looked onward to the news.

The professor suggested that we construct a barricade in front of the door, because the door lock wasn’t that strong—it’s an old building. We moved our tables in front of the door in a line so that it touched the other wall opposite of the door. We made it so the door wasn’t going anywhere, no matter what. The only fault in the system was that the door had a glass window. The glass was smoky so you couldn’t see in or out—only the light that passed through.

We started calling our friends to collect some news. We had no computer in the classroom—our professor did not bring hers and the usual computer users didn’t bring theirs, either. We had no access to the outside except for our cell phones. Most students at Virginia Tech are Verizon users; the lines were swamped. Only T-Mobile and Cingular users had good service, and we had multiple people with those services in the classroom. We all called our families, friends, and loved ones.

EIGHT CASUALTIES NOW.

My phone received messages, both voice mail and text messages, but I couldn’t respond to them easily. I got through to my girlfriend and mother just to tell them that I was safe and that I loved them. I knew we were safe inside our classroom, but I still wanted to hear them.

This is when we received a knock at the door. I went up to the side of the door and asked who it was. He said it was the sheriffs department. We took down our barricade and opened the door. He told us to stay inside and stay away from the windows. He left and we rebuilt our barricade and returned to our corner. We started watching a French movie while everyone called people and answered calls sent to us. No one paid attention to the movie. We didn’t want the movie; we wanted the news. We wanted to know what we had going on outside. We wanted to know what kind of history was in the making.

We heard word of people jumping out of Norris Hall. There were loudspeakers outside, telling us to stay inside with the door locked and not to go outside for any reason. Screw the movie; we watched the news again. We took pictures with our camera phones to remember.

Eventually, we heard activity in the corridor outside of our door. We quieted our voices and listened on. We heard shuffling of feet. Running. Loud stomps. A lot of panicked movement.

Then we heard laughter.

We opened our door and saw two women telling us to get ready to run. We packed up our things quickly and readied ourselves. Our only objective was to get out of Holden Hall as quickly as possible. We said our goodbyes to each other and ran down the stairs, turning the corners at high speeds. Jogging at a brisk pace. I ran out of the back door of the building and three police officers told me to run toward McBryde, and that I should be safe there. There were a lot of police cars, a lot of ambulances, and a lot of news crews. I was safe by the time I reached the Old Security Building, close to my dorm, so I walked back and soaked it all in. I wanted to remember everything that happened.

I got back to my dorm and everyone was happy that I was safe. My French class usually gets out at 9:55 a.m. I did not leave the building until 12:00 p.m.—about two hours of hiding. Many people called to make sure that I was safe. The college closed for Monday, April 16, 2007. Classes are canceled on the 17th as well. Nothing good came out of this event at all. The news channels described the situation:

“THE WORST CAMPUS SHOOTING IN US HISTORY.”

—CNN

“PRESIDENT BUSH TO ADDRESS THE NATION
AT 4:15 PM.”

—CNN

“31 REPORTED DEAD, MAKING IT THE WORST MASS SHOOTING IN US HISTORY.”

—MSNBC

“GOV’T. OFFICIALS: DEATH TOLL IN VA TECH SHOOTING RISES TO 31.”

—MSNBC

“32 DEAD IN VA TECH SHOOTING RAMPAGE; GUNMAN IS DEAD.”

—FOX NEWS

“NOT ONLY THE WORST CAMPUS SHOOTING, BUT THE WORST SHOOTING IN THE US.”

—CNN

It is unbelievable to think that people do this to fellow students. Thank God that my friends are okay. This day, the 16th of April, I will never forget.

We will be in the history textbooks.

We will be on the news, being interviewed.

Our grandchildren will call us and talk to us about what happened for a history report.

Soak it all up. Never forget this day. The day when we made international news. The day where the nation looks toward Blacksburg. The day our college will never forget.

April 16, 2007

SEPTEMBER 24, 2018

Virginia Tech was the worst school shooting in recent U.S. history. But in 2007 it didn’t feel that way while it was happening. On the day of the shooting, I wrote a detailed account of the events, because I knew the day would come to tell the story. That account was created on April 16, 2007, and I included photos I took on the day of the shooting as well as the story behind the picture found on Wikipedia.

I can’t remember specifically how the picture of us huddled in our French classroom made it on to Wikipedia. The students were cold-emailed for interviews. From our view, news reporters grabbed at any student email address they could find. I made myself available for any interviewers that wanted to have a more direct student account.

To be honest, I felt guilt in interviewing with reporters. Specifically, because I was not in an intruded classroom. I was not shot. I did not get injured. I did not die. I was in the building next door. I felt my personal account and my story were not as important as those more directly impacted by the shooter. I felt guilt in the interviews, discussing my account, and taking that picture. I felt it shouldn’t be me sharing this information because nothing really happened to me. I felt extremely naive as a freshman.

The day started like any other day, and then suddenly sirens started to overtake the campus. Black vans appeared, which looked like a SWAT team of sorts. People barged into our classroom and said, “Hey, there was a shooting this morning across campus. The shooter has now gone into Norris Hall.”

We barricaded the door. We were a room of freshmen and a young professor. We stayed inside, spent our time trying to get information. Too many students and faculty tried using the same phone networks. Folks had loved ones calling in. We, and certainly others, were trying to dial out. It was a double-edged sword. Yes, people wanted to know that their loved ones were safe, but those that needed it most weren’t able to get cell service. Fortunately, we were able to rely on less popular phone networks. Our classroom had an opportunity to call friends, family, and loved ones, letting them know what was going on. We managed to get the news via a cable-connected projector. It was our most reliable way to get information during the crisis. We watched the shooting unfold live. The media reported one person died. Then, eight people had died. Then thirty-two people had died. It felt like I was both watching from afar and watching close by. We were distant, and right next door, at the same time.

I wrote love notes to those I cared about in my notebook. I didn’t think the shooter would come into our room. Our shooter would have had to been quite intentional to travel between Norris Hall and Holden Hall. It isn’t intuitive. It certainly was a possibility, but not a probability. It was logically comforting. But writing in my notebook was a precautionary measure. Just in case the shooter came knocking.

If the shooter wanted to enter our classroom, he would have been able to. There’d be nothing we’d been able to do. Barricading the door with desks and bookshelves felt safe to us. A couple hours went by, then we received a knock at the door: a self-proclaimed “sheriff.” We didn’t know who this person was, so we were taking a gamble. But we opened it anyway. Good thing he was a sheriff.

The sheriff said to pack our things and get ready to evacuate the building. I physically ran back to my dorm, fortunately, close by. I encountered my dorm mates. They were happy I was safe.

The college closed for the rest of the day, and they canceled classes for a week. On April 17, 2007, a convocation was held in our basketball stadium, Cassell Coliseum. President Bush and the First Lady attended and addressed our community. The anguish was palpable. Many in the crowd had their brothers and sisters, boyfriends and girlfriends, sons and daughters, and professors and coworkers die. It was tragic and heartbreaking.

To conclude the convocation, Nikki Giovanni, a University Distinguished Professor and poet at Virginia Tech, delivered a beautiful chant poem, “We are Virginia Tech”. A video of her poem can be found searching “WE are VIRGINIA TECH” on YouTube.

Our response to her poem: “Let’s Go Hokies.” Our famous cheer at sporting events. That was the cheer we used when we were about to win a game. Our cheering captured an important sentiment. It indicated how our community was to react. That we will prevail, and we will get back on the horse. I was grateful for this moment. The fact we could rally ourselves out of a terrible massacre. It was a powerful reaction. It showed our spirit wasn’t broken. Any community must decide how to cope, and what happens next. We chose positivity. Our cheering was our group therapy.

That night, we held a candlelight vigil to honor those who died. It took place on our Drill Field, a beautiful green field in the center of campus. We brought the entire Virginia Tech and Blacksburg communities together. Speeches turned into a moment of silence. A moment of silence broken by our game-winning cheers. Another sign that we’ll get through this.

April 16th, for the following years, remained a day school was not in session. We conducted the vigil annually, through the day I graduated. It still takes place at present. April 16th formally became the Day of Remembrance in the Hokie community.

We acknowledge each year the thirty-two lives were taken from our community. I recall a particularly powerful Day of Remembrance a few years later. Students released a bouquet of balloons during a moment of silence. The balloons were a mix of our school colors: orange, maroon, and white. A single balloon stood out among the rest: a black balloon. A thirty-third balloon. Seung-Hui Cho’s mental illness led to the death of thirty-three people, including himself. The black balloon symbolized that, while he did terrible things, he was a Hokie. He, too, was a part of our community.

HOW I FOUND MY WAY

By Lisa Hamp

During the Virginia Tech shooting, Lisa Hamp and her classmates laid on the floor pushing the desks and chairs against the door while the shooter shot at the door and tried to push it open. Fortunately, their barricade held and the shooter was unable to enter their classroom.

I grew up in middle- to upper-class suburbia outside Washington, D.C. in “northern Virginia.” It is typical suburbia: chain restaurants and golf courses, hardworking parents and kids wearing Hollister. I felt safe all the time, everywhere I went. But on April 16, 2007, that sense of safety and security was stripped from me. I was a junior at Virginia Tech studying mathematics. I was sitting in computer science class at Virginia Tech when my classmates and I heard gunshots coming from across the hall. During the next eleven minutes, my classmates and I laid on the floor pushing the desks and chairs against the door while the gunman shot at our door and tried to push it open. In those horrific minutes, the gunman killed thirty-two students and professors, and wounded and traumatized many more.

When I walked out of that building that day, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what was next. Process, healing, self-care, and mental health—I didn’t know what these words really meant.

My recovery journey was far from perfect, but I eventually found my way through the fog. When I reflect on recovery, I realize I learned a lot about counseling, boundaries, self-confidence, and feelings. This stuff isn’t taught in school. You learn it by observing those around you. Here are a few things I learned:

Recovery isn’t linear.

Time, time, time. Everything takes time. Because time gives us space to process what has happened. I remember when I first started going to therapy, my counselor telling me that it was a process and it was going to take time. I got a bit frustrated inside. I thought to myself, I want to get better now, why can’t I get better right now? She told me it is going to be two steps forward, one step back. But some days, it felt like one step forward, two steps back. The days will pass, the important part is to stick with it.

Be cautious when people tell you how you should feel.

Only you know how you feel. These feelings are coming from somewhere inside you because of something that you experienced. Many people you know may not have experienced what you did, so they are going on with life as normal. Meanwhile, your head is spinning with a zillion thoughts and you can’t seem to relax. This is normal. Feel your feelings, and confront them gently. I know from experience that pushing them away doesn’t work.

Create boundaries, not walls.

I’m not talking about physical boundaries and walls, but I’m talking about the invisible kind. Who and what do you let in? This one was difficult for me. I was the black-or-white, all-or-nothing Type A kinda gal. I had to learn to embrace the gray. I had to figure out how to have healthy boundaries with the stranger at the grocery store who is asking me if I was there during the Virginia Tech shooting—do I tell them? do I talk about it?

You can’t help others till you help yourself.

Just like on an airplane, when the flight attendant tells you that you need to put on your own safety mask before helping others with theirs, the same is true for recovering from trauma. I learned that you can’t help others till you help yourself. The counseling that is available after tragedy at a school isn’t just for the students. It’s for everyone—the school administrators, faculty, and staff, as well. Everyone needs help at some point in time in their life. Sometimes it is just hard to admit it.

Create a self-care tool kit.

Create a tool kit to take care of yourself. Fill it with things you like. Journals, church, walks, music, candles, baths, coloring books, nail polish, Pixy Stix. These are some of the things I like, but your tool kit will look different. You need to tailor it to you, the things you enjoy and the things that help you relax.

After the Virginia Tech shooting, I couldn’t make sense of my thoughts or feelings. The result was low self-confidence and self-worth. The result was me looking for something to control because I felt I lost control of my personal safety. The result was me trying to cope with my feelings and using food and exercise to do so. The result was me pretending to be resilient and successful, but inside, I was hollow. So years later, when I was finally ready to process the trauma, what did I do? Trusted my gut. Listened to my feelings. Wrote in a journal. Talked and walked with my closest friends. Resisted the urge to compare myself to others. Listened to that tiny voice inside my head, that was guiding me through my recovery.

And I gave it time.