Home is in Blacksburg

MICHELLE SKEEN / News Virginian
Published: April 30, 2007

Home is where the heart is. That's an expression we have all heard a thousand times, from the first time we went away to summer camp until our parents dropped us off at our dorm rooms as freshmen. Until last week, home for me has been the house where I grew up, with my parents, sister and dog.

But one day changed everything. On April 16, one man saddened the lives of so many people in the small community of Blacksburg. I have lived through something I thought I would only read about in history books, or hear happening at some other college across the country.

Not here. Not my school. Not my friends.

But it happened anyway. They are calling it the Virginia Tech Massacre. I hate that those words are used in the same sentence. Last week was a blur for many of us as students. Lockdown, hospitals, frantic phone calls, desperate prayers and far, far too many tears.

As events unfolded, I learned a close friend of mine, Heidi Miller, was injured and in the hospital. I spent every waking moment with my church group, around the friends that knew her. We were practically living together in the three days after the tragedy. I watched them get phone calls about friends who were not as lucky as Heidi. I cried with them.

At first, I refused to leave my friends. I yelled defensively at everyone who suggested I go home Monday or Tuesday, but finally gave in to my mother's worried voice on Thursday and got a ride back to that place I grew up.

I was actually angry about leaving Virginia Tech. My heart ached as I watched those maroon VT bushes fade in the rearview mirror. I was leaving the people who I loved, the people whom understood what I had been through.

And it wasn't until I saw those bushes again two days later that I felt better. Because no matter how many people told me they were praying for me, or were thinking of me, or were there for me, they didn't get it. They didn't know what it meant to be a Hokie the day we lost 32 of our own. They didn't know the fear, the anxiety and the grief that we felt as we watched our campus fall under the attack of such brutal violence.

And yet, they also couldn't feel the strength, the unity and the power I felt when I raised my candle along with thousands of others, shouting "Let's Go Hokies!" through my tears.

And now that I have returned, I feel that strength stronger than ever. It comes from the kids playing volleyball outside the dorms, it comes from the orange and maroon T-shirts that we have worn since Monday, whether we have had time to do laundry or not. It comes from being a student at Virginia Tech, with a pride and love too strong to be destroyed.

If home is where the heart is, then my home is most definitely Blacksburg. Because my heart and soul reside at Virginia Tech.
Thank you all so much for the love and support.

Michelle Skeen is a Virginia Tech student and former News Virginian intern.