There and back again

According to the t shirt I got this past week, I'm a "Proud CSU Parent". Yup, the Boy and I went to Cleveland for college orientation. The Dad and the Girl stayed home. Drove. And drove. And drove. You get the picture. Pennsylvania is beautiful, but way longer than it ought to be. Route 80 is truck city, and it can be annoying to have a multi ton missile dogging your tail. Orientation was actually pretty good, though lots of walking; a small college feel for a good sized university.

We earned another t shirt for being one of the few to come from far away. That was the question all day long. "Where are you from?""Connecticut?!!""Why?" Apparently most are from the greater Cleveland area. Well, the Boy wants to go away from home, and thinks that folks are nicer in the Midwest. They are nicer in general as you head west. There are just too many of us packed into the East. Rats without enough room...you remember the sociology experiments. We're not that horrible, well, there are some... We have good friends in Cleveland, and so we're comfortable with him out there. I liked the school, forward thinking in ways the place I work at can't be. Came home to find out that the Boy had gotten a talent scholarship - he does have pipes - you go Boy!!!!! The Mom and the Dad are chest burstin' proud!

I was cruising on the high - good trip, scholarship, etc., when I went back to work today, then I heard the news about Virginia Tech and the massacre that occurred there this morning. I think it was a turning point for me of some kind. I've lived through astronauts burning on the launch pad, and the Viet Nam war in my living room, Nixon's resignation, the threat of "the bomb", the taking of the US embassy in Iran and the year of waiting after, the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, Challenger, Columbia, Columbine, NYC, Flight 93, and the Pentagon, the poor girls in the Amish school...and all the other agonies in between. We don't live far from Ground Zero. As an adult and later as a parent, I've been touched, and I've mourned, and I've stressed, and worried, and cried, and wondered if my God was listening.

Today seemed different. There is usually buzz about things on the outside world that get through at work, and then that's what people talk about. Today I didn't hear about this until late in the afternoon. Even more strange, folks who did know didn't mention it. We weren't unfeeling, we felt badly. But it was as if we didn't want to talk about it much, like we had reached some kind of saturation point. Someone went on to spend more time investigating a local scandal online. We talked a little. But it felt like we were full, unable to take another blow. Perhaps we were just weary, thinking of how the news would be filled with ghastly images, sound bites, things that are too black to think about. The Dad and I are sending our kids out in to the world, and it frightens the hell out of me. That could be my kid that doesn't come home from college. I don't know. But my heart is with all those families who are in agony tonight.