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I felt it like the beat of a drum or a thunderclap rip through my body from head to toe, and everything went black. Everything was numb for a second, and then I woke up. It was 3:24am Pacific Standard Time on April 16, 2007, and I was safe in my bed. My baby and husband were asleep next to me, and I had a horrible feeling. I knew that my daughters were safe in their beds, asleep. I thought for a moment about my sister, my father and my mother and resisted the urge to call them to make sure they were okay. I wandered around my house in the dark for a few minutes, unsure of what to do.

I woke my husband up. I whispered that I felt like something was wrong. He and I had been at odds the day before, so he said: "Lots of things are wrong." I shook my head, unable to shake this terrible feeling. "No", I told him, "I feel like something bad happened". I just didn't know what. I just couldn't shake it. I felt like someone had died. It seemed like there was going to be much sadness and grieving in the next few days, and I just prayed for my family.

I was finally able to go back to sleep an hour or so later, and had no idea what was happening at the other end of the country as I was drifting back to sleep.

I got up and called my parents, and desperately tried to get ahold of my sister who did not answer her phone. I finally got ahold of her and everyone was okay, as far as I knew. I went through my day, still shaken up by the memory of how I had woken up. It still sits in the pit of my stomach. Hours into the day, I happened to catch the news report about 22 deaths(at that time)at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg Virginia. I was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, but have no family there to speak of. I was dumb struck. I stared at the report, and turned on the news.

I have listened to the different and detailed viewpoints of a variety of newscasters, journalists, and the address given by the President, the local Virginia police and school officials. It is apparent to me that there was a disturbing lack of attention paid to detail in the first shooting. It took them two hours to realized that neither of the deceased in the first shooting were in possession of the murder weapon, and that if they were, how could they have absconded with it and hidden it while they were...well, DEAD? Students were not notified of the first shooting, classes were not canceled, policeman were called but did not cordon off the area or the campus. One student shared that he heard about the first shooting

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