Generally speaking, I’m a pretty cheerful person. I walk on the
sunny side of the street. I can pick a silver lining out of
thousands of clouds. Got a glass that’s half empty? Hey, I can turn
that frown upside down and show you that the glass is half
full.
Generally speaking, I’m a pretty cheerful person. I walk on the sunny side of the street. I can pick a silver lining out of thousands of clouds. Got a glass that’s half empty? Hey, I can turn that frown upside down and show you that the glass is half full.
It’s very rare that I get down about anything at all and if I do, I bounce right out of the funk. It’s not that I’m insensitive – although I freely admit, I am probably one of the shallowest people on the planet – it’s that I’m a naturally optimistic person. Show me any downside and I can find the upside. I walk on the sunny sidewalk of life and I like it that way.
But the shootings at Virginia Tech pose a challenge for those of us who usually look on the bright side of life. When something like this happens, even an eternally optimistic person such as myself is affected.
I don’t know what the worst part of the shootings is. I don’t know if it’s the fact that 33 people (as of this writing) are dead. I don’t know if it’s the fact that 33 life stories are over. They won’t write books or build better bridges. They won’t find love. They won’t have children – or not have children. They won’t fulfill their dreams, no matter what those dreams were.
They won’t attend any more soccer games. They won’t teach young people how to make planes or create faster freeways or rewrite a sentence to rid it of a dangling participle. They won’t have any more final exams or term papers. They won’t see new movies or discuss the latest best sellers at their book clubs. They won’t drink any more beer at keg parties or stay sober to be the designated driver. They won’t be there to provide comfort and companionship to their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children and friends – to all the people who knew them.
Because they aren’t there any more.
And that is what is taken away from all of us. We may not have known the people who were killed – indeed, even if they had lived, we may never have known them. They may have gone on to live quiet, anonymous lives like most of us. But we will never know that, because their life stories are lost, gone. We can’t even begin to imagine what could have been, what might have been if the shooter, Cho Seung-Hui, hadn’t gone on a rampage.
When something like this happens, I can’t find the silver lining. There’s no sunny side on this street. Oh, there’s a blame side of the street, to be sure. All the talking heads on TV are discussing warning signs. People are popping up all over the place, discussing the plays Cho wrote, the weird behavior, the stalking of women on campus. And the bobbing TV heads wring their hands asking, “Why? Why didn’t anyone see? What could have prevented this?”
And you know what ticks me off the most about that? It transfers the blame. It takes the blame away from Cho and puts it on others. And yes, there were people who thought Cho was crazy. Teachers, students, ordinary people. But ultimately, no matter what happened, it was Cho’s fault. He came, he shot, he murdered.
And I don’t care if he was crazy as a bedbug. I don’t care if he should have gotten help or if he got it and it obviously wasn’t effective. The blame side of the street should only have one person on it and that’s Cho.
Because Cho alone is responsible for what happened. He stole lives. He stole life stories. He stole children that will never be born, people who mattered to other people and lives that will never be fully lived. He even stole from his own family. He stole a son and left his parents facing an eternity of “what ifs” and “whys.”
And from all of us, he stole just a bit of the sunshine on the bright side of the street.
Because, crazy or not, he was a bad, bad man and even an optimist such as myself can see that. So now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to look for the bright side of the sidewalk. Because standing here in the shady part isn’t good for me. I’ve got to find a glass that’s half full and get on with the business of being cheerful.
Laurie Sontag is a Gilroy writer and mom who wishes parenthood had come with instructions. Her column is syndicated. She can be reached at
la****@la**********.com
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