Today, I feel that it’s appropriate to quote a story originally told by John W. Schlatter in Chicken Soup for the Soul:

“Mark was walking home from school one day when he noticed the boy ahead of him had dropped all of the books he was carrying. Mark knelt down and helped the boy pick up the scattered articles. Since they were going the same way, he helped to carry part of the burden. As they walked, he learned that the boy’s name was Bill…[t]hey arrived at Bill’s house and Mark was invited in. They ended up in the same high school [and when] the long awaited senior year came, Bill asked Mark if they could talk.

Bill reminded him of the day years ago when they had first met. ‘Do you ever wonder why I was carrying so many things that day?’ asked Bill. ‘You see, I cleaned out my locker because I didn’t want to leave a mess. I had stored away some of my mother’s sleeping pills and I was going home to commit suicide. But after we spent some time together…I realized that if I had killed myself, I would have missed that time and so many others that might have followed. So you see, Mark, when you picked up my books that day…[y]ou saved my life.’”

Today — April 16, 2008 — marks the one-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech Massacre, which left 32 dead and many more injured.

To commemorate the tragic event, Penn joined universities across the country in a moment of silence to be observed at 11 a.m.

Already this morning, countless media outlets are running VTech stories as a tribute to those 32 victims: some discuss the event with injured survivors of the shooting; some update the safety struggle at colleges across the nation; and others revisit the VTech campus to depict a scene of sorrow on this heartbreaking anniversary.

But on a day when our newspapers, television shows and radio stations will inevitably discuss many sensitive issues, I think it’s just as important to remember the virtues of kindness and friendship.

Tags: Virginia Tech

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 12:32 pm and is filed under Higher Education, Penn. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.