My VA Tech Connection

When the news came out about the VA Tech murders, all I could think about was my friend Doug. He's a Poli Sci professor who spent the better part of a decade in Blacksburg. He changed universities three years ago, so he was safe that day, and in that instance. But I still needed to hear his voice.

So I called his cell phone, just to say hey, I need to hear your voice.

As it happened, he was in Hawaii, at a conference. We have yet to connect by phone, but we're still connected.

I met Doug my freshman year of college, and we have remained close in spite of all the places and distances that have come between us over the years. This is the person who joked me through my first broken heart. Who used to play backgammon with my now husband with cases of long-necked Budweiser on a makeshift game table in his apartment. Who was informed by the local police that in Wisconsin, unlike his homestate of Montana, carrying loaded shotguns on a rack in your truck wasn't a legal option.

This is also the person who married his amazing wife while he was on sabbatical in Fiji and she was in the Peace Corps. Who has a beautiful, smart and loving son named Milo, and a very cool dog named Stella. Who lives on the California coast with them, and dives, sails and enjoys every single day.

A lot of the "angles" to the VA Tech story were predictable, some were not. From afar, I wish someone had been able to reach this troubled person, and I feel the pain of his family in trying to come to terms with why he did this.

For far more selfish reasons, I'm very glad our Doug wasn't on campus that day. But it doesn't stop me from weeping every time our pastors pray for the victims, or retell the scene of the professor who used his own body as a shield so that his students might escape. I don't know how, as a human being, or as a mother, you rationalize any of it.