My morning bus commute into campus was silent today.  There was not a word spoken by anyone on the bus for the entire thirty minute trip.  As we picked people up and dropped people off the air was thick with unspoken words.  I wondered if it was because today is the last day of classes and finals loom.  Or whether it was because we were all picturing Virginia Tech, putting ourselves in those students’ places.  Thinking that yesterday morning they were alive and anticipating the end of their school year, just like we are.  That they had no idea how the day would end.

I think about the families.  How difficult it is to cope with the sudden, sensless and violent death of someone you love.  How most of them probably still don’t understand what happened.  How they don’t even believe yet.  How the truth will hurt.  How the truth will hurt forever.  That death is forever.  That no matter what they do now, how hard they try to change the facts, the truth is still the truth.  And the hurt is never ending. 

So I believe that the silence on my bus this morning, the contemplative faces, the downcast eyes were in response to yesterday’s events.  That we are forced to recognize yet again that no place is safe.  That universities are not immune to violence.  That the “ivory tower” we live in is nothing but smoke and mirrors. 

Today I believe that students everywhere are hurting for those at Virginia Tech.  

And realizing that they are us.