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Virginia Tech

All That Was Lost

December 16, 2012 By Michele Woodward 5 Comments

I am an alumna of Virginia Tech.

As that April day in 2007 unfolded, I couldn’t keep the tears away. I grieved and mourned for those who died, and for the university. Forever, the words “Virginia Tech” would be linked with tragedy.

And, now Sandy Hook Elementary will be likewise linked. Forever.

Once again, the tears flow.

In the five years since the shootings at Blacksburg, we’ve aggregated that loss into “32 shot and killed, 17 wounded”, which is what we humans want to do. We want to be tidy and quantify loss into a manageable package – maybe in an effort to minimize our aching pain.

But now is not the time for tidy.

Now is not the time to start saying, “20 students and 6 adults at Sandy Hook”. No, that’s too easy.

Because what we need to do today is remember. And fully feel the pain.

We must be brave enough to see each of the lost as the individuals they were.

We need to honor first graders Avielle, and Chase, and Emilie, and Catherine, and Ana – knowing that these children will now never have a first dance, a driver’s license, a college acceptance letter.

Let’s remember Dylan, and Madeline, and Jack, and Benjamin, and Noah – young people who will never have a first job, or buy a house, or hold their baby in their arms.

Our thoughts need to include Olivia, and Daniel, and Caroline, and Jessica, and Allison – who leave paintings unpainted, words unwritten, and creations unmade.

Grace, and James, and Jesse, and Josephine, and Charlotte – may never have had a wiggly tooth, and now…never will.

Then, there are the adults we lost – Mary, and Victoria, and Anne Marie, and Lauren, and Dawn, and Rachel. There is no doubt in my mind that their last thoughts were about the safety of the children in their care, and they died in service to those kids.

That care and service is the legacy we must carry forward with us. To inspire us, and to focus our own choices and behavior.

Imagine if every day, each one of us asked: “What can I do to insure a child’s safety today?”

Why, we would change the world.

In 2007, the poet Nikki Giovanni wrote a praise poem which she read in Blacksburg. Its refrain was a powerful call, reminding us all that “We are Virginia Tech.”

And, now, we are all Sandy Hook Elementary School.

We are all the parents of these lost children.

We are the spouses of these lost adults.

We are their brothers, their sisters, their aunts, their uncles, their cousins, their neighbors, their friends.

And as such, we can never forget.

Never.

We are all Sandy Hook. And we will never aggregate our grief into mere numbers. Twenty children and six adults killed – no, that does them no justice.

We must remember their names, and their lives, and their loss – their humanity and their individuality. They walked, they talked, they loved.

They are each so much more than numbers. So very much more.

You and I live in a social compact with one another – a compact which orders our communal life. Like agreeing to stop at stop lights, and give emergency vehicles the right of way, and knowing when your right to swing your arm ends at the other fella’s nose. Perhaps the loss of these dear ones will lead us to strengthen our social compact, but that discussion comes next. After today.

Today, now – our social compact calls for deep grief, deep remembering and shared commitment to honoring the lives that were lived.

While we hold dear all that was lost.

 

Filed Under: Authenticity, Clarity, Managing Change, Uncategorized Tagged With: coping with loss, grief, loss, Nikki Giovanni, Sandy Hook, school shootings, trauma, Virginia Tech

Remembering

April 11, 2010 By Michele Woodward Leave a Comment



It was a day in April.  Pretty day.  Cool day.  Down in the mountains, they had snow flurries.

For some reason or other, my son was home from high school and we decided to run out to a favorite lunch spot for a bite to eat together.  Just as I left the house, I heard there had been a shooting at Virginia Tech.  Like so much news, it registered on my consciousness for a flash and was gone.

By the time we reached the restaurant, the full story was being reported.

I lost my appetite.

That day, I wrote this blog post and want to share it with you this week, in remembrance:


I am an alumna of Virginia Tech. Class of ’82. When it came time to apply to college, I had no idea about safety schools or applying to a bunch… frankly, I had no clue about college admissions and I didn’t work the system. I applied to Tech, William & Mary and UVa. I was accepted at the first two and waitlisted at the third.

But I chose Tech because of the campus. The majority of the buildings are constructed of “Hokie Stone”, a gray-blue granite quarried locally. I was utterly smitten with Hokie Stone. On pretty days, the stone reflected the breathtaking blue of the mountain sky. On gray days, the stone embodied the resolute, iron-strong values of the university.

And I came to love the school’s Latin motto “Ut Prosim”, “That I might serve.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about Ut Prosim as the stories around the Blacksburg tragedy began to unfold. I was reminded of Ut Prosim as I heard the story of the Eagle Scout, shot through the upper thigh, bleeding from a wound to his femoral artery. This young man made a makeshift tourniquet and stopped the bleeding. Then, he moved around to his wounded and dying classmates, administering what first aid he could. Ut Prosim.

I thought Ut Prosim when I watched Tech President and alumni Charlie Steger conduct press briefing after press briefing, always clear, always calm, always thoughtful. I can only imagine what his presence meant to the students and parents he undoubtedly met with privately. His strong leadership and consistent commitment to openness and candor set the tone for the Virginia Tech emergency services team as well as the administration. Ut Prosim.

But nowhere was Ut Prosim more evident than in the heroism of Liviu Librescu, a 76 year old professor and Holocaust survivor who used his own body to block the door of his classroom to the shooter. I imagine Professor Librescu knew exactly the pain of losing dear ones to violence. I think he knew the sweetness of living life after having survived catastrophe. I can almost hear him urging his students out the window, “Go, go!”, urgency in his voice, as he gave his life so others would live. Ut Prosim.

Renowned poet Nikki Giovanni came to Virginia Tech in 1987, after I left. I recall seeing news about her appointment and being proud of my alma mater for inviting a poet of her reputation and stature to the community – a community better known for its engineering and architecture than its poetry.

In lyric remarks at the Convocation, Nikki Giovanni used the phrase “We are Virginia Tech” to punctuate her prose poem. It was inspiring. It was encompassing. It was what we needed to hear.

We are Virginia Tech. And now you are Virginia Tech. We are Ut Prosim. And you are Ut Prosim, too. Finding ways to serve – ways both big and small, heroic and humdrum – is incumbent upon all of us. It’s how we can honor those who have fallen, and begin to reach out to those in our community who need our help.

Poet Nikki Giovanni said it best:

“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.”

Let’s remember. Let’s learn. Let’s make it impossible for it to ever happen again.

Filed Under: Authenticity, Managing Change Tagged With: Nikki Giovanni, Ut Prosim, Virginia Tech

In The Rearview Mirror

October 7, 2007 By Michele Woodward Leave a Comment


It’s been a year since I began writing this weekly blog. A year! And what a year it’s been.

Looking back, I certainly have referred to pop music — in A Peaceful Easy Feeling, Risky Business and, of course, Funk Sway.

I’ve written about tragedy in We Are Virginia Tech, When Times Are Tough and Changing Through Crisis.

I’ve spent time talking about workplace issues with The Best Job Interview Question Ever, Getting Back To Work and Extreme Jobs.

I’ve written about books, like the best-seller called The Secret, in How To Get What You Want, and other great books in Forgiveness and The Power of Discipline.

One of the most popular columns I’ve produced is Fight or Flight? Or Mend and Tend. Believe it or not, this piece is read nearly every day by someone in the world.

Because I have readers in Singapore and Moldova. Ireland and Italy. South Africa and India. The breadth of geography is astounding. But most of you readers are living somewhere between Alaska and Florida, and I thank you kindly for your time.

Do I have a favorite column? Not really — they’re all my little brainchildren and, like a doting mother, I can’t pick one I like best. When I re-read my columns, I remember what was going on at the time, how I felt, how a client felt, what the day was like. So, for me, each column is its own time capsule.

Folks ask me, “Where do you get the ideas you write about?” Sometimes it’s a theme which emerges from several coaching clients in one week, or it’s something I’m working on getting in my own life. Many of you pass on ideas, and you’ve saved my bacon more than once — so keep your suggestions coming!

What have I not written on in the last year that needs attention? Well, let’s see… Katharine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Myers, and what they accomplished. How teenagers provide excellent role models. Spam. The link between self-knowledge and beauty. What to do when your boss is a jerk. How to be heard. And, in the words of the pop poet, Kenny Rogers, when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em.

So, another year beckons. Stick with me, will you?

Filed Under: Career Coaching Tagged With: best self, blog, challenges, change, life coach, love, Virginia Tech, workplace issues

We Are Virginia Tech

April 19, 2007 By Michele Woodward Leave a Comment

Virginia Tech

I am an alumna of Virginia Tech. Class of ’82. When it came time to apply to college, I had no idea about safety schools or applying to a bunch… frankly, I had no clue about college admissions and I didn’t work the system. I applied to Tech, William & Mary and UVa. I was accepted at the first two and waitlisted at the third.

But I chose Tech because of the campus. The majority of the buildings are constructed of “Hokie Stone”, a gray-blue granite quarried locally. I was utterly smitten with Hokie Stone. On pretty days, the stone reflected the breathtaking blue of the mountain sky. On gray days, the stone embodied the resolute, iron-strong values of the university.

And I came to love the school’s Latin motto “Ut Prosim”, “That I might serve.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about Ut Prosim as the stories around the Blacksburg tragedy began to unfold. I was reminded of Ut Prosim as I heard the story of the Eagle Scout, shot through the upper thigh, bleeding from a wound to his femoral artery. This young man made a makeshift tourniquet and stopped the bleeding. Then, he moved around to his wounded and dying classmates, administering what first aid he could. Ut Prosim.

I thought Ut Prosim when I watched Tech President and alumni Charlie Steger conduct press briefing after press briefing, always clear, always calm, always thoughtful. I can only imagine what his presence meant to the students and parents he undoubtedly met with privately. His strong leadership and consistent commitment to openness and candor set the tone for the Virginia Tech emergency services team as well as the administration. Ut Prosim.

But nowhere was Ut Prosim more evident than in the heroism of Liviu Librescu, a 76 year old professor and Holocaust survivor who used his own body to block the door of his classroom to the shooter. I imagine Professor Librescu knew exactly the pain of losing dear ones to violence. I think he knew the sweetness of living life after having survived catastrophe. I can almost hear him urging his students out the window, “Go, go!”, urgency in his voice, as he gave his life so others would live. Ut Prosim.

Renowned poet Nikki Giovanni came to Virginia Tech in 1987, after I left. I recall seeing news about her appointment and being proud of my alma mater for inviting a poet of her reputation and stature to the community – a community better known for its engineering and architecture than its poetry.

In lyric remarks at the Convocation, Nikki Giovanni used the phrase “We are Virginia Tech” to punctuate her prose poem. It was inspiring. It was encompassing. It was what we needed to hear.

We are Virginia Tech. And now you are Virginia Tech. We are Ut Prosim. And you are Ut Prosim, too. Finding ways to serve – ways both big and small, heroic and humdrum – is incumbent upon all of us. It’s how we can honor those who have fallen, and begin to reach out to those in our community who need our help.

Poet Nikki Giovanni said it best:

“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.”

 

Filed Under: Authenticity, Blog, Clarity, Happier Living Tagged With: sacrifice, strength, Ut Prosim, Virginia Tech, Virginia Tech shooting

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