One Year

April the 16th is this Wednesday. I can't believe that it's been a whole year already. I still remember it like it was yesterday. That morning I got up early to meet Courtney for breakfast in Squires. We were chatting when a friend got a phone call that there had been a shooting on the other side of campus and a local elementary school was in lockdown, but the police thought that the perpetrator had left campus and that it was an isolated incident. I thought twice about going to my 9:05am modern algebra class, but I had a quiz that day, so I went anyway. When I got out of class in McBryde, chaos had ensued. Professors were telling us not to leave the building, no one knew what was going on. Looking out the back windows towards Randolph, all I could see were police cars and ambulances filling the roadway. After receiving a few phone calls from my roommates, who were all safe, a professor told us all to get out of the building as fast as we could and head away from that part of campus. I ran to Torgerson, then made my way to Squires, where I knew a lot of my friends would be. Once I got inside, I immediately called my Dad at work to let him know I was okay and to get in touch with my Mom, who was at work as well. He had no idea what was going on, but he was glad that I was safe. Not many peoples' phones were making calls, but mine was, for some odd reason, so I let everyone borrow my phone. We all sat in the building, watching the TV's downstairs, trying to find out what happened and if we knew anyone that had been killed. They didn't release any names at that time, and we were finally released from the building and headed home. I went over to Courtney's house with her, and we watched the news the rest of the day. They announced the cancelling of classes for the rest of the week, and that afternoon we found out about Stack. The next day, we headed to the convocation (we ended up in Lane Stadium watching it on the jumbo-tron) in our MV's uniforms in honor of Stack. Many of us also wore our uniforms to the candlelight vigil that night. I even explained to a reporter why we were wearing our uniforms. The media coverage was crazy. Wednesday of that week, I went home, since there were no more classes, and I just wanted to get away. It also made my parents feel better knowing that I was in one piece and they could see that for themselves.

It hasn't been easy dealing with the tragedy in the months following, but we are a stronger community now. I don't take anything for granted, and I make sure to tell the people I care about that I love them, and I give them lots of hugs, because you never know what will happen.