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In case you've been wondering...

A lot of people have been talking to me about this over the last 24 hours or so. It's not just all over the American news - it's made the cut for the headlines run across the little screens in the transit system, which makes it pretty big news. In the case of my Canadian friends, they don't know many Americans, let alone Virginians, so I guess it's natural that they think of me when they hear the story. The problem is, I just don't know how to feel about it. Like any national tragedy, as far as I know, I don't know anyone personally involved in the shooting - I didn't attend Virginia Tech, and even if I did, I graduated college 8 years ago. But probably around half of the kids that graduate from my high school every year are headed to Blacksburg - there isn't a town in VA that doesn't send a significant portion of its youth to Tech. So I'm sure we're all feeling like we should be feeling SOMETHING, but aren't quite sure what. Don't get me wrong, the whole situation is devastating. No matter where you are from, the senseless slaughter of dozens of people that did nothing wrong that day except get up and decide to go to class instills very real feelings of sorrow and loss in anyone. And the fact that it happened close to my home makes it that much more real and sad for me, I guess. But I'm having a hard time coming to terms with the reality of it. This morning, on my way to work, I was running late because I didn't want to turn off the news, and I couldn't focus on reading my book during the commute because I couldn't stop thinking about those folks in Blacksburg. And one of the feelings that I hadn't been able to put my finger on yet became clear:

Homesickness.

Lemme 'splain...
Tragedies are always easier to handle when you can be around other people who are feeling the same emotions you are. I know I personally find I can't properly accept and grieve a loved one's death until ALL of the family members are together. When I was in grad school, a couple of major tragedies happened in the span of a little over a year: the 9/11 attacks, the anthrax scare, and the DC sniper shootings. All major national news stories - events that, while grieved by an entire nation, had a unique resonance with those of us from the Washington, DC area. On 9/11, my father had been sent home from work early, but couldn't get a bus right away and was thus sitting in a restaurant watching CNN when that 4th plane was still in the air and headed for DC. One of the DC sniper shootings occurred the night before my brother was flying out to see me - he and his girlfriend had gotten gas at that gas station that evening, about an hour before the shooting. Now, do I think that my fear on 9/11 was worse than that of someone with a loved one in New York or on one of those planes? No way. Do I think it was different? Absolutely. The same thing goes for the anthrax and the sniper shootings - the random nature of the attacks made it impossible to know my mother, father, brother, and friends from home were safe. I made the comment to people at the time that it had been a bad year to be away from home, and the response was usually something along the lines of, "seems like a GREAT year to be living anywhere BUT home." But it doesn't work that way - when you're away from home, and something awful happens there, you want more than anything to be with the people who are going through it.

This latest tragedy, I'm a little more removed from. As I said, as far as I know, nobody I know personally was involved or directly affected by the massacre. I know that my family was safe at home, all a good two or more hours away from the gunman. But I still want to be there with them, to grieve with my community, with the people who MIGHT know people who were directly affected.

Maybe I'll sort out my emotions more with a little more time, but as I looked out the window of the bus at the Toronto skyline, all I knew was that it's been a long time since I've felt so far from home.