Reporter's Notebook: For students, an eternity in one day

(The reporter recounts his experiences covering the Virginia Tech tragedy in Blacksburg, Va.)

Standing on the edge of the crowd at Monday night's vigil, I asked Virginia Tech junior Kathryn White how she was coping with the previous day's tragedy.

"It's getting easier every day," she said.

A few seconds later, White realized her mistake: "Well, it's only been one day."

White's mistake was understandable - most of the Virginia Tech student body seemed to feel stuck in a never-ending nightmare. They couldn't quite believe what had happened was real, but it also seemed like they had been dealing with it for an eternity.

Freshman Karen Tucker went to high school with two of the students who were killed and lived on the same dormitory hall as another.

For much of that first day, she said, "It kind of was surreal because it was coming in in bits and pieces and you're just like, I don't want to believe that Reema's dead. I don't want to believe that Erin's dead."

It didn't really sink in for her until she saw the family of one of those high-school classmates grieving at the vigil. Then, finally, she said, "It definitely hit me very hard."

I had only been there one day, and, even as an outsider, felt completely drained. Arriving on campus Tuesday morning, I was concerned that it would be difficult to find someone to interview who was directly involved in the shootings or knew one of the victims.

It seemed, though, that nearly everyone I talked to had some sort of story. The first two people I met explained to me how they wanted to go home but were sticking around campus until their friend, who had been shot, emerged from surgery.

Less than an hour later, I talked to Alan McDonald, a sophomore who was caught on the Drill Field during the shooting and had to flee among the chaos.

"People were stopped, people were just going in all different directions," he said.

The professor and TA from his measurements class were both killed.

Standing outside the Convocation ceremony, freshman Matt Devine sadly told me about the loss of his friend, Leslie Sherman. He and Sherman, he explained, had gone to New Orleans earlier in the year to help build houses.

There were so many of these stories that Devine's hasn't even made it into either of my articles the past two days.

Inside the Convocation ceremony, I sat down next to sophomore Brandon Stumpf. We talked for about a half hour, and he explained that nearly everyone, if they did not know somebody who was directly affected, had a friend who was.

Mostly, though, I couldn't get over how he, and so many of his classmates, had resisted finger pointing and kept such a positive attitude despite his sadness.

I had just driven in from Philly with no connection to the place and was angry that the police had not responded better to the initial shootings. But rather than contemplating the preventability of the second round of shootings or assigning blame, the students seemed almost universally focused on each other.

"It's pretty sad," Stumpf said. "At the same time, I think a lot of positive is going to come out of this. It shows the unselfish nature of people in a time of crisis.

"I think it makes you come together."

As if on cue, at the beginning of the ceremony, the packed Cassell Coliseum crowd gave their beleaguered university President Charles Steger a standing ovation.

At one point during English professor Nikki Giovanni's stirring speech, Stumpf involuntarily started to clap. Realizing that he was the only one, he stopped himself until after the speech, when he broke with the crowd into wild applause and cheers of "Let's Go Hokies!"

I didn't think the moment could be ever possibly be replicated, but that night at the vigil on the Drill Field, I was proven wrong. When the crowd once again burst out into chants - candles bobbing up and down with every cry of "HOKIES!" - I was again at a loss.

After most of the crowd had dispersed, there was still a sizable group of students massed around the stage. Looking out over them, I thought back to Spring Fling, when Penn students, under much happier circumstances, had similarly mobbed the Lower Quad stage to listen to Mask & Wig close out the day.

I couldn't believe that it had been just a few days ago. After spending a day at Virginia Tech, it seemed like much longer.

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