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By Candlelight, Hearts Heal

April 17, 2008

By Jim Nolan

BLACKSBURG, Va. — Virginia Tech's Day of Remembrance began in silence with the light of one candle in the dark.

It ended last night with the light of thousands of candles casting a glow that illuminated the university's Drillfield — the place Tech President Charles W. Steger had earlier called the "symbolic heart" of the Hokie nation.

That heart — broken one year ago with the April 16 shootings of 32 students and faculty by disturbed gunman Seung-Hui Cho — showed signs of mending yesterday morning as thousands of Hokies gathered to honor the dead and continue their struggle to regain happiness.

Yesterday, the Drillfield became both a place to play and a place to pray. A ballfield, a church, a crisis center, a concert hall. A stage for protest and a crucible for the competing emotions that confront many touched by the tragedy — how to recover as they remember, how to move on and not forget.

Roughly one-third of the families of the victims and nearly all 19 of those who were injured and are still enrolled at Tech attended the remembrance ceremony yesterday morning, university officials said.

Many, like thousands in the crowd that covered much of the Drillfield, wore variations of T-shirts in the Tech colors of maroon and orange. Some were memorials to loved ones, others made simple declarations like "STRENGTH" and "FOREVER STRONG."

"We have not found all the answers that we have sought," Steger said as his voice echoed off the stone school buildings and newly budding trees that ring the 12-acre field of green. "But at every turn, we have found each other."

That community extended beyond the campus walls. A local florist provided the elaborate arrangements of roses, lilies, snapdragons and eucalyptus chosen by the families to adorn the Hokie stones of each of the 32 victims at the memorial site. The florists told the university they did not want anyone to know what they had done.

The University Symphonic Wind Ensemble, dressed in formal wear, played solemn, meditative selections from the composer Samuel Barber.

"It was difficult to play," admitted Alex Schmitt, 19, who plays the French horn.

Ryan "Stack" Clark, one of the first two of Cho's 32 victims, was a good friend, the first person he met when he walked into his dorm room on campus as a freshman last year.

"I just remember this amazing smile," Schmitt said.

After the morning ceremony, students and others lined up for hours to proceed past the ring of gray Hokie stones engraved with the names of the victims. Many paused to kneel by the stone of a friend or classmate.

Some laid flowers at the stones, or small tokens of their love and loss.

One was a button that showed a picture of victim Emily Jane Hilscher. "Emily Hilscher was cooler than me," it said.

You realize they're not just stones over there," said Omar Samaha, 24, a 2006 graduate and the older brother of victim Reema Joseph Samaha. "Those stones are representative of some beautiful and amazing people."

"The last year seems like a dream," said sophomore Brendan Lee, who laid a rose at the stone of his former residence adviser, Caitlin Hammaren. "I didn't know what to feel."

As the day wore on, the feeling began to shift from sorrow and sadness. By the early afternoon, the Drillfield could have been mistaken for the student quad of any university on a warm and sunny spring day.

Clusters of Hokies dotted the landscape. They spread out on blankets in bare feet, eating picnic lunches, reading, or sleeping to the faint strums of acoustic guitars. Footballs spiraled back and forth. Frisbees floated on a gentle breeze. Dogs sprang from their leashes.

But as encouraging as the signs were that the Tech community is trying to move on, being on the Drillfield yesterday was also to know that even a year later, April 16, 2007, is never far behind.

"The ceremony was really hard, but every day is really hard," said Samaha, among a group of about 100 students and members of the families of victims who gathered at one end of the Drillfield to protest gun violence, one of 80 similar protests held across the country yesterday in honor of the Tech victims.

Junior Ally St. Onge, 21, whose best friend, Nicole White, was killed in the attacks, asked people to lay down for three minutes — to symbolize the typical amount of time it takes to purchase a gun in Virginia.

Most everyone laid down. Survivor Colin Goddard, shot by Cho a year ago in his French class in Norris Hall, did not. He could not.

"I was one of the first people to lay down and get up a year ago," he said. "I don't think I want to do it again today."

At dusk, the Hokie faithful returned to the Drillfield for one final gesture of remembrance. Student government representatives lit 32 candles from the one candle, passing the flame to tens of thousands of candles that were held aloft. Light spread across the space. A choir sang.

As the ceremony concluded, they cheered "Let's go Hokies!" before breaking up for the night. And then a small group of students gathered and began singing "Amazing Grace." And the Drillfield again became what the Hokie nation needed — a chapel.

Contact Jim Nolan at (804) 649-6061 or jnolan@timesdispatch.com.