A Time to Heal

Like all of us I am terribly saddened by the tragedy this week in Blacksburg. But on Monday morning, like many others, I was on pins and needles so terribly afraid that someone I loved was there and perhaps in harm’s way. The difference, perhaps, between my fears and the fears of others that tragic morning was that if anything happened to my dear friend, my “second mother”, (a woman whom I had just spoken with and joked with less than 30 hours before the shootings began), I felt confident that I would hear about it pretty quickly because my dear friend is a celebrity, a poet, a cultural icon.

Her name is Nikki Giovanni.

I think it is important that in this hour of tragedy we embrace the feelings we have and not try to move on too quickly. Nikki and I spoke at length Saturday about mourning and the process of grieving—Nikki recently lost both her mother and sister and her dear friend Rosa Parks, a woman whose courage and dignity continue to inspire us, and I lost my beautiful baby daughter Lehna—and both of us know and feel this sense of loss so profoundly.

A tragedy, a death, is not something to just brush aside and “move on past”. It is a gaping hole that will never, really, be filled. I know that Nikki loves Virginia Tech and Blacksburg and I am glad that she is there to help the healing process along.

She has helped me and propped me up in days of my own personal darkness and she has been such a comfort and inspiration to me and all the others we have known together for over 23 years now and I can think of no one better qualified in all the world to help the students and staff of Virginia Tech to work through this pain and take those necessary baby steps towards planting their feet once more on solid ground than Nikki.

I know all of us hurt now, a lot, but I believe the wise thing is to accept that we hurt, acknowledge that we have a right to hurt, and not try too quickly to mask the pain but rather accept that we are hurt and allow ourselves time and space to heal in whatever manner is appropriate to each of us.

I lost my darling daughter on March 5, 2006—she was stillborn after a seemingly perfect pregnancy—and my world has never been, and will never be, the same again. For all the parents who have lost a child or who see your children in pain because they have lost someone they loved, my heart breaks for you and I offer you my deepest sympathy and send whatever love and hope one can send to you.

Your heart will continue to break so please allow yourself whatever time you need to work through this. For those wonderful students and members of the Hokie Nation, I offer my respect and best wishes and pray that you will find the strength to pull each other up together and can take the wisdom you will find from addressing this tragedy and make a life for yourselves and others that you can feel proud of.

This tragedy does not reflect negatively against you. I know that you all will rise together and do great things and we in other parts of America look to you and offer our hopes to you and we pray that you will allow us to love you and hold you in our hearts.

I hope that in our grief we can continue to uphold the highest standards and show dignity and respect to all people; I am referring to the Korean-American community and the family of Cho Seung-Hoi, who have not only lost a child or brother or nephew but also now feel the pain of knowing that their world will be changed in ways that are probably not really fair to them. I hope that all of us can show compassion to his family and realize that they hurt, too.

It is easy to blame, not so easy to understand and forgive but I beg all of you to show compassion not only to one another but to all those who are perhaps judged guilty in the court of public opinion due to their association with this boy: this includes not only his immediate family but all Korean-American citizens and also those who may have played a passive part in Cho’s rampage by selling him the guns or ammo. It is not their fault this happened and I implore you all once again to show love and embrace one another and not stoop to finger-pointing or divisiveness.

Nikki’s kindness and praise is something I have always cherished (she, too, was my teacher and it is especially chilling to me to know that Cho was a playwright and took a class with Nikki; I was a college playwright and most definitely “the teacher’s pet” in an advanced poetry class with Nikki at Ohio State in 1984) and I feel confident that she will be a guide and comfort to you all in this time of grieving, as she has been to me so many times. I want to end with words taken from a poem by Nikki, “We Go On” from her latest book, “Acolytes”:

. . . We go on

Because we have good men and women
Good boys and girls
Good people
Who want this history
Others would destroy
To live