One Year, Beyond

February 28, 2013

Memories — for each of us, different and yet the same.
On Feb. 27 of last year, I had a doctor’s appointment in the morning. A follow-up visit to monitor the status of my blood pressure. Since I had worked late on Sunday night, this meant getting up early, with only a couple hours of sleep.
I was groggy while getting ready. But news and comments from radio giant WTAM 1100 kept me motivated. With a towel in hand, I approached the shower.
Then, Bill Wills shattered the morning calm. “Shots fired at Chardon High School,” he reported.
I immediately contacted my sister in regard to the youngest of her children, who was a student at the school. She switched on her television to discover live coverage of the unfolding tragedy.
After that moment, the day became a blur.
Not surprisingly, my BP was elevated at the doctor’s office. Afterward, I drove straight to Chardon. Police and media figures were everywhere. I ended up in parking lot, trading information by cell phone.
A Facebook profile for the shooter was posted online while helicopters were still flying over the city. I wondered how this information had escaped traditional news outlets. A radio reporter in my contact list replied with insight: “We have a legal department to satisfy. Stories have to be verified before they are repeated to the public.”
It was a moment that defined the paradigm shift from traditional media to cyberspace pioneers. But in human terms, that tragic day marked a transition of a different kind — from the sweet illusion of safety, into a realm of modern challenges our greater community had never faced before.
Emotions were plentiful, and persistent. Disbelief, anger, sadness and determination.
At the time, I struggled to make sense of that day:
“The tragic events at Chardon High School literally shook this community to its foundation. Yet, as the world looked on, we came together with a single purpose — to begin the process of healing.
“Churches opened to receive those who would kneel in prayer. There were candlelight vigils. And memorials set up both at the school, and on the Chardon square.
But for this writer, a different methodology seemed appropriate. Healing words were what I sought.”
My friend Mary Malloy Bramstedt described an editorial cartoon that read: “If this can happen here, it can happen anywhere.” The location of “anywhere” was marked “Chardon, Ohio.”
In personal terms, I chose to reflect on the day in solitude. Yet, I could not imagine handling such an event without faith and family.
Makeshift memorials appeared on the Chardon Square, and at Chardon High School. I visited both, and bowed my head in prayer. Many other local residents were doing the same.
Months later, thinking of the tragedy still caused my eyes to fill with tears.
In the year that followed, events across the nation revived our hurt. Dark images came from a movie theater, in Aurora, Colo. And from the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
More emotions joined the mix. Shock, rage, agony and frustration.
Then, in the aftermath, came a period of reflection and analysis.
National political forces from both sides seemed eager to cite these awful happenings as evidence for their divergent viewpoints. Open debate resounded in the media. And disagreement over future plans.
But in Chardon, one year beyond, there was instead, a familial sense of coming together. Of healing wounds. Of protecting the community and each other.
A friend with two school-age sons offered her own thoughts about that day:
“You kiss your children goodbye … send them out the door … drop them off … watch them ride away in that bus taking them to the one place on this earth that you trust completely to take care of them when they are not with you … school.
“In one day … one morning … one hour … one second … everything changes. So incredibly senseless, so incredibly overwhelming … and the questions keep coming. Why did this happen? How did this happen?
“Communities come together … neighbors … strangers … flock to one another in a show of support … a show of love … knowing that this could have easily been their child … their life that was changed forever … our small town changed forever.”
The phrase “One Heartbeat” seems even more perfect now, than one year ago. In Geauga County, U.S.A., the anniversary of this tragedy does not find us separate and apart. Instead, we are closer still. Joined together in care, concern and, most importantly, in love.