Dateline: April 16, 2007, Blacksburg, VA.

It was a bleak and cold morning in Blacksburg, VA on the campus of Virginia Tech when events began to unfold that are still hard to conceive one year later. Before the day was done, though, the world would learn that Seung-Hui Cho had killed 32 people-students and professors--before turning a gun on himself. The full extent of the tragedy was slow in developing.

However, as early as 7:30 a.m. the news broke that two bodies, Emily Jane Hilscher and Ryan Christopher Clark, were discovered at one of the residential houses on campus. Later we would learn that 19-year-old Clark died trying to defend Hilscher. But he was not the only hero to die that day. Many other students and professors risked and sacrificed their lives to prevent others from facing the inexplicable wrath of the 23-year-old gunman.

It was an overcast morning I will always remember because, ironically enough, about the same time the first shootings occurred, some ninety-miles away, I was writing a poem about the flower children of the late '60s. When I turned on my TV to get my daily douse of CNN, I was shocked as facts concerning the rampage began to unfold. Immediately, my interests in the rebellious youth of the past waned as my heart went out to the victims, their families, their friends and the entire close-knit community of Blacksburg.

I could almost feel a palpable sense of grief also pervade over the nearby campus of Ferrum College, affecting many of the students, staff and professors who I call friends. Again, I especially sensed the dread the news would cause the parents of the victims, as I thought about my own daughter-a recent college graduate.

One of the many interviews, which I vividly recall, was done with Cho's two roommates, Joseph Aust and Karan Grewal. They spoke of their initial meeting with the future mass murderer and how they found him to be quiet and shy. Still, it was obvious that they went out of their way, fruitlessly, to befriend the young man who was born in South Korea. More than once they convinced Cho to go out to dinner with them in an effort to coax him out of his self-imposed shell. Even though their compassionate efforts failed, to my way of thinking, these two young men are also heroes-having continually reached out to connect with their troubled roommate. .

"After the freshman year," Grewal said, "you don't probe too much if people don't actively converse with you. I think I'd be scared if I tried any harder. I could have made him angry and act violently towards me."

As the day progressed, the public learned more about the shooter and his many victims-those who died and the many others who were wounded. But I am not going to dwell on that horrific day any longer.

Instead, I will jump to the next day when I believe a long healing process began. During convocation to honor the victims, four spiritual leaders-a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim and a Buddhist-took turns speaking. Although they each used different words, parables and quotations to deliver their separate messages, their intentions were quite similar. They acknowledged the horror of the previous day; the loss of innocent lives and the grief and mourning that prevailed. Yet they each called for love, compassion and forgiveness to be the chief emotional elements involved in a needed healing process-saying that everyone connected to the victims allow those ideals to rule over the raw, lower-based emotions of anger and hate as they moved forward in life.

Governor Tim Kaine spoke about being stuck in an airport in a foreign country, watching a newscast, when he first heard word about the shooting rampage. He went on to relate how proud he was of the way the community had responded with so much courage and level-headedness in the face of such a devastating tragedy. I, too, felt proud to be a Virginian, since 2002, agreeing with his assessment. And every time the CNN cameras focused on the audience, it was apparent that a strong spirit of fortitude and resolve existed in the hearts and minds of all those present.

Then the most rousing speaker of all, Nikki Giovanni a renowned poet and professor at the university, took to the podium. Mirroring the strength and resolve of the community, she recited a poem she'd written for the occasion. She lifted her voice victoriously as she came to the last few lines, "We are the Hokies. We will prevail! We will prevail! We will prevail! We are Virginia Tech!"

Giovanni ended with her hands raised above her head to thunderous applause and enthusiastic chants of, "Go Hokies, go! Go Hokies, go!"

Almost a year later, Holly Wheeling, the emergency doctor, who worked at the Montgomery Regional Hospital where many of the shooting victims were treated, was quoted in The Roanoke Times.

"Sometimes I look at my children and how they just appreciate life and don't anticipate that bad in going to [happen] and I don't want to spoil that yet. They are too young. But it kind of is a good lesson sometimes for me. You get caught up in the day-to-day living that you don't really appreciate or live moment for moment sometimes. And when I see them, when I see them outside and running or throwing rocks... I'm touched and try to encourage that. I try to enjoy living with them. Because we don't know."