A Student’s Letter Home

A Student’s Letter Home
by Bryan Schamus
April 20, 2007


To my loving family and friends:

We continue to heal in Blacksburg. I look at the calendar and I see it's only been four days. It feels like months.

The outreach has been tremendous, especially at the Newman Community, Tech's Catholic Campus Ministry. We got the word out that we were providing a sanctuary for the students to come hang out. Take a look at our website for everything we are currently offering. (www.catholic.org.vt.edu) We continue to receive food, drinks, priests, counselors and people in need all the time.

We have eight priests in residence right now and they take shifts to be in the house for whomever might need help. Some people come in and just need to watch a movie. Some need to talk to a priest. Others just need a big hug.

The Bishop of Richmond is traveling to Blacksburg to say Mass on Sunday.

The convocation on Tuesday was the most moving event I've seen, and might ever see, in my life. Put all politics and personal opinion aside, President Bush was in our basketball arena to be with the Hokie Nation. He spoke from the heart and brought tears to many. Governor Kaine was “right on" with his speech as well, as he described his experience with the Hokie Nation. The ceremony ended with a now famous poem from world renowned poet and English professor here at Tech, Nikki Giovanni. This was her poem:

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 we are sad enough to know that 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 being captured by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib 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 heart 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 imaginations and the possibilities. We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and through all our sadness.

We are the Hokies.

We will prevail.

We will prevail.

We will prevail.

We are Virginia Tech.

The crowd of 12,000, with 20,000 watching in the football stadium on the video screen, responded with resounding cheers and applause which led to the most spirit-filled "LET'S GO HOKIES" chant ever to fill Cassell Coliseum.

It was my first Hokie cheer ever. Since first coming to Tech, I've worked at every home football and basketball game in a "professional" capacity. I've never cheered with my fellow Hokies. I always dreamed about one day being able to cheer from the stands but I never wanted it to be like this. It was bittersweet. But I will always remember it. LET'S GO HOKIES!!!!!

We hug everyone we see. There is so much good happening here right now. But I would give anything to go to class – to listen, take notes, without a worry in the world.

My good friend Theresa lost one of her best friends in one of the classrooms in Norris Hall. I can't even imagine. When she walked out for the ceremony next to President Bush, I didn't even know what to think.

Today I was interviewed by "Religion and Ethics", a television show on PBS.

Check your local listings to see when it airs, as it is different everywhere. They also filmed me singing Dona Nobis Pacem with some of my Newman singers.

Never, not three years ago or three days ago, could I have imagined what 4/16/07 would bring us. But in the aftermath of this tragedy, I'm reminded of all the reasons why I love with this place with all my heart. There is no other place on the face of the earth that could have dealt with such a loss in the way we have. As I told PBS today, when we gathered on the drillfield with candles and chanted, "LET'S GO---HOKIES", that was our prayer. Our ecumenical prayer as a united Hokie Nation. Thank you, Frank and Lisa McGrail for dragging me to Blacksburg three years ago. This is where I needed to be.

It will take many more days and months to heal. But I know all of you are praying and thinking of us. I apologize for not being able to return every phone call and e-mail, but please know that I read and listen to every one of them and they mean so, so much.

And I really hope that someday before I graduate, those of you that I'm writing to many miles away, can visit this campus and see what it's like without the world watching. Without the blood. Without the crime scene tape.

And without the sadness.

I am so proud to be a Hokie and I hope you are too. You all are Hokies. Wear your maroon and orange on Friday!

Please, please take a look at who this was sent to and send it on to others I may have forgotten or to those who would enjoy reading it. It's 1:30 a.m. and I'm running on fumes, so I am bound to forget people.

Keep the e-mails and calls coming and, of course, your prayers. I love you all.

HOKIE HOKIE HOKIE HI TECH TECH VPI SOLAREX, SOLARAH POLYTECH, VIRGINIA RAY, RAH, VPI TEAM TEAM TEAM

Peace and goodnight,
Bryan

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