A Mother's Diary: 'Where There Is Dark, There Is Always Light'
This is just the beginning–there will be funerals and memorial services–Westfield was touched in a unique way. I knew the class of 2006 was special. Never thought it would be something like this that would put them in the spotlight.
Nicole told me last night how proud she was of the Westfield class of 2006–they accounted for 54 of the 56 VT students from that class and knew Rema and Erin were missing long before anyone knew–they came together on "facebook"–Nicole from behind her locked dorm room while in lockdown–from colleges all over the country. This weekend they are all coming home converging to be with one another.
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4/19 – Its 3 in the morning and my heart is beating out of my chest. My daughter had some friends over tonight. I always like when they hang out here. Safe. The front door opening awoke me. It didn't alarm me; I figured the kids were just leaving. Then I heard something else. Not sure. But it's hard not to have the sights and sounds that keep replaying on the TV somewhere in your consciousness, especially in the wee, dark hours of the night.
I call for Nicole. No answer. I check her bed, the guest room–empty. I go downstairs to the basement. The TV is on but no one is there. No cars are still in the driveway. Where is she??? Where is my daughter??? Panic starts to set in. I can't get the menacing, eerie image playing over and over and over yesterday on the news out of my head. Why do they do that? Why can't they just show it once and not pick it apart. This isn't fiction; this isn't a movie–this is real life, and lives. Children are already scared.
Parents are trying to explain why "bad things" happen to them. I should have turned the TV off–I know. I have that "choice"–I tried to change the channel but the image was everywhere. Could we escape it anyway when it is so ubiquitous and as a country we are so glued to the unfolding of these events?
Where is she? I call her cell phone–no answer. The logical part of my brain knows she probably is somewhere but another side is stuck in this alternate reality where the unthinkable can happen at any place, any time. Random. After all, I think we think that our kids college classroom is about as safe as the basement downstairs. Something bad happened there. What parent could ever imagine their kid would go to French class in the morning and they would never see them again? So anything is possible right??
I call her friend–"Oh, she might have walked her boyfriend out to his car"–I call his phone. Answer. Big sigh ... Relief. Deep breath. It's different than the hundreds of other times I breathed a sigh when she wasn't answering on the other end or home at the exact prescribed minute. I walk out there to make sure anyway–in the night and the quiet. The image of a madman crazed and psychotic in my head.
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