Never in my lifetime would I have imagined to witness something like this.

I want to send my condolences and prayers out to the family, friends and Virginia Tech alumni and students who have been changed forever due to the tragic massacre which occurred this morning.  I can not find the words to begin to explain how my heart and soul feels as I, as well as numerous others, mourn the loss of too many innocent lives.

I still can not believe that something of this magnitude has hit so close to home.  UVa (my alma mater) and Virginia Tech are both structured the same way.  Main roads flow directly through both campuses and there isn’t a way to monitor who comes and goes on campus and more importantly what items (i.e. weapons) are being brought onto campus.  I can’t help but think what if something like this happened while I was at school?  What would I have done?  How would have the UVa administration dealt this type of tragedy?  Would I have remained at UVa?

I like the so many others have so many questions…

How does someone have the capacity to hate so much and mindlessly take the lives of innocent people and then perform the cowardly act of killing himself?

How can a university as large of Virginia Tech even begin to develop a process to prevent this from happening in the future?

How can students feel safe and continue living there in the near future?

Will “open campuses” such as Virginia Tech begin to develop stricter security access points?

How do students, their families, faculty, staff and those living in Blacksburg even begin to recover from this tragedy?

Watching the press conference this evening I looked on as the Virginia Tech Chief of Police, Wendell Flinchum, struggled to relay information to an understandably frustrated and upset group of reporters.  It was so hard to watch Flinchum try to answer questions that he wanted to better answer but due to the ongoing investigation, he would be more forthcoming without potentially jeopardizing the case.

It is so sad that it takes a tragic event to make people truly realize that our time on this earth is a gift and can be taken away at any moment; tomorrow isn’t promised.  We must do our best to live each day as if tomorrow won’t happen.

This event remains heavy on my heart and my prayers will continue to be with those effected.

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