Schott: Struggling with the why
For a person who makes her living with words, I’ve been stumbling over mine the past two weeks.
As I’ve sat down to interview people about the year since the shooting at Northern Illinois University, the words that come out of my mouth seem inappropriate.
Take the word “anniversary,” which came up with almost every person I’ve talked to. It’s the wrong word to use to describe today, because there’s nothing to celebrate about what happened in Cole Hall at 3:06 p.m. a year ago.
There’s nothing joyous about the senseless loss of five promising students and the injury of another 21 people.
And then there’s the question I ask almost every person I interview. Why? There’s always a why.
Almost always.
What I’ve struggled the most with about what happened at NIU a year ago today is not knowing the why. And I don’t think we’ll ever know. Why here, why that day, why Gayle, Catalina, Julianna, Ryanne and Daniel died.
A hole was torn in our hearts a year ago today. In just minutes, someone who had studied at NIU, someone who had been in our community and benefited from the labor of the people who live and work here, changed the lives of thousands of people. The families of those who were killed and injured, students, faculty, staff, residents, alumni and who knows who else – forever changed, all of them.
That day is etched in crystal clarity in my mind. From first being alerted to the tragedy by hearing the word “shooter” over the police scanner to seeing, hours later, the horror on the faces of reporters and photographers returning from campus, I remember it all.
For the most part, I wish I could forget that day. But there’s also a memory that brings me comfort.
Eight days after the shooting, hundreds of people gathered in the lower level of Kishwaukee Community Hospital. In one-hour shifts, they packaged cookies to hand out to NIU students, who were set to return to campus three days later. There were at least 50,000 cookies there that day, donated by local businesses or quite possibly made in the kitchens of local grandmothers.
Talking to the people who came because, though it was a small gesture, it was something they could do to show compassion, I was transported back to my childhood. I was waiting for the cookies my mother was baking to come out of the oven so I could get one while the chocolate chips were still gooey. It was a delicious symbol of her love – especially on a tough day when no one would play with me on the playground at school.
It has been, metaphorically speaking, a tough day on the playground for us here in DeKalb. But small gestures, like the cookies, are what distinguished this community a year ago. From Feb. 14 onward, the people of the community opened their hearts.
We saw strangers open their doors to exchange students who had nowhere to go when NIU closed campus for a week. Business owners put encouraging messages of hope on their billboards. The city hung banners welcoming students back to the city. And there were hundreds more of those moments that are unknown except between the giver and the recipient.
Those bags of cookies prepared a year ago were small, and they weren’t going to heal any wounds.
But that day, 50,000 symbols of love were made.
And that’s something I’m proud to remember.
Reach Daily Chronicle city editor Kate Schott at 815-756-4841, ext. 221, or kschott@daily-chronicle.com.
