Joe DePalma, a buddy of mine wrote a heartfelt message on his My Space blog that I thought I would pass along. In a stream of consciousness after the shootings, he gave good advice that I think we should all take. Take a look:
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I've been reading all day about the story of the massacre at Virginia Tech. It's completely making me sick. Why, How, When can this happen? I don't know... I'm just ranting. Please take a moment to say a prayer for the lives that were taken today. Just say a quick prayer to God for peace and mercy. I've prayed that this increased violence all over the world is coming to its end... and hoping and giving faith that it's not in its beginning stages.
Life is so short and precious. You never know if you'll be in a shopping mall, in a restaurant or sitting in class and feel a bullet rip through you. This morning, 32 students woke up and went to their Monday classes at Virginia Tech... they're all dead now. And the ones who were close to the situation but didn't die probably won't ever be the same again.
Let's all say a prayer now. Next time, it could just as easily be you... or me... or a loved one.
Hold on tight to the love in your life my friends... for tomorrow it may not be there anymore.
For all of this, I pray...
I also request that for the rest of today you carry your own mortality on your sleeve. Feel it. Breathe it in. Come to a place where you truly understand that anyone of those 32 people who were stripped of their lives at Virginia Tech are no different from you. Just like you and I did, they simply went about their Monday routines as usual. They didn't take any unnecessary risks and they didn't put themselves in harms way. They simply followed their Monday morning schedule... and they were slain without mercy or reason because of it. Dead. Gone. Never again to be able to say "Goodbye," "Hello" or "I love you." Nothing. Just gone.
What are the parents, siblings, family members, best friends, boyfriends/girlfriends of the victims saying to themselves now? My guess is they're thinking, "Oh God, what was the last thing I said to him/her?" "Did I let them know how much they meant to me?" "Did I push them away?" "Did I pull them close?" "What did I do?"
They're probably thinking something like that. And now they have the rest of their lives to ponder how they could have handled that last encounter better. That's what happens when a life is stripped away so abruptly. The residual effects are everlasting. We never think about it, but death doesn't give a shit about our schedule, our plans, or our feelings. It just strikes. It doesn't bring compassion and it doesn't care about the mess. You're not ready to lose someone? You're not ready to go yet? "Screw you," Death says... or in this case it came from the gun of a 23-year-old senior from South Korea named Cho Seung-Hui. He didn't care about the love he stole from so many families and he didn't care what situations the victims were in... what dreams they had, what relationships they were in, what fences they wanted to mend. Death just marched into those two buildings on the V-Tech campus and that was that.
It's easy for some people to see it on TV and simply brush it off and say, "Just in the wrong place at the wrong time." It's a natural defense that helps us passively process something that's so random and destructive. But I invite all of us, whether you have innocently sat in a college classroom or not, to bring this tragedy in and make it your own.
Allow it to hurt.
Allow it to break down a wall or two and then see if you want to make any changes.
Because events like the massacre at Virginia Tech happen everyday. It's just that they're smaller and less receptive to television and newspapers. And it's usually not a gunman, but rather a sickness or an accident that death uses to carry out its deeds.
Live life to the fullest right now. Both you and I think we have a plan and it's ours to control - but it's not. We may be playing the game and we may even be able to call some of the shots, but ultimately the guy holding the clock makes his own rules up as he goes along. And he doesn't care if those rules are fair or not in our minds.
Hurry Up.
-- Joe DePalma
www.myspace.com/joedepalma
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