“We are Virginia Tech. We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on. We are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech. We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly. We are brave enough to bend to cry, and sad enough to know, we must laugh again. We are Virginia Tech. We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of aids, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid capture by a rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community be devastated for ivory. Neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the baby Appalachian infant killed in his crib in the middle of the night, in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy. We are Virginia Tech. The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open hearts and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong, and brave, and innocent, and unafraid, we are better than we think, and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imagination and the possibility. We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears through all this sadness. We are the Hokies. We will prevail. We will prevail. We will prevail!! We are Virginia tech.”

My thoughts and prayers go out today to the friends and family of the victims of this massacre.

R.I.P Maxine Turner, JMHS Class of 2003