Last night, The Dave Matthews Band and other artists performed at Virginia Tech. The concert was designed to serve as both a remembrance of those killed and injured on campus in April 2007, and as a defiant affirmation of life for the people spiritually decimated by the shooter’s actions.
The Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer, Phil Vassar, and Nas have graciously offered to Virginia Tech a free concert for the members of the university community. ... It’s about a celebration of spirit. ... a way to help students, faculty and other[s] ... move forward in the aftermath of the April tragedy at Virginia Tech.
-- Virginia Tech concert website
I want to tell you about Rapunzel.
She did not die on campus that day in April. Neither did her father. So I was lucky. I didn’t have to join the thousands of grieving and celebrating people in Lane Stadium last night. I didn’t have to listen to Dave Matthews sing for my daughter.
Time can be such a flexible entity. Had the shooter selected a different day to share his rage, my daughter would have been directly in his line of fire.
Rapunzel had taken a break from college to work for a couple of years. Since her dad worked at Virginia Tech, she picked up a job there fairly easily, becoming the youngest full-time state employee in Virginia. Often she rode to work with him in his battered Ford pickup. He kidded her about falling asleep during the early-morning commute. But of course she could sleep: she was with her dad, safe, relaxed. It was routine.
Sometimes, mostly during lunch breaks, she scampered across campus to find her dad. Their duties and pay scales differed significantly: he had an office and a certain degree of authority; she had a heavy portable vacuum and access to an array of abrasive industrial cleaners. She’d leave notes on his office door or sneak up behind him as he hunted and pecked his way across the computer keyboard. She liked to fling herself onto him without warning, throwing herself into a full-pounce bear hug, knowing he was strong enough to handle anything she could dish out.
Rapunzel worked in the building where the shooter later emptied his weapons into virtually every human he encountered that April day. Only a stroke of fortunate timing kept her out of the mass murderer’s target range.
It was a strange thing, really.
A few months before the April rampage, I began to develop the most bothersome discomfort. Every day, I worried about my daughter. I had no reasonable foundation for the fear I felt. Her dad was right there on campus with her. She could find him in minutes. He could fix any mess she could possibly create.
Yet the feeling nagged: GET RAPUNZEL OUT OF THERE, my mind screamed. SHE IS IN DANGER. GET HER OUT OF BLACKSBURG.
I fought the voice for months. Finally the mental noise pushed me to my limit. I went to Blacksburg, set out a new plan for her to ditch the job and return to college elsewhere, damn near anywhere. Of course, she resisted. She had a life at Tech; she had friends; she had a beautiful package of state-employee benefits – even health, dental, and eye care! How many 20-somethings can support themselves and score full health coverage solo without finishing college first?
I packed her up anyway. The family tag-teamed the hauling: we gathered Rapunzel, her roommate, her cat, her thousand books, her endless music collection, even her stuffed animals – those lingering remnants of childhood. I muled boxes of used books and sticky art supplies, bags of outrageous thrift-store clothing, clattering piles of kitchen gadgets, endless technological pieces and parts, until I could barely walk. I smiled and pretended I was absolutely fine.
And I was, really. The screaming voice in my head was quieting. I was getting Rapunzel out of Blacksburg.
Her dad continued to work at Virginia Tech. He still does.
He was eligible for a free ticket to last night’s concert, just as every other employee or student on campus. He’s a jazz enthusiast, and particularly enjoys Dave Matthews. Neither he nor I knew who Dave Matthews was until our little Rapunzel came racing into the house a decade ago, insisting we listen to her new CD. The world absolutely had to stop until we heard this "genius," this "virtuoso." So we listened.
She played "Rapunzel" for us. Dave Matthews sang:
"... Of this there’s no doubt
I do my best for you, I do
For you I would crawl
Through the darkest dungeon
Climb the castle wall
... you are my Rapunzel ...
I think the world of you
All of my heart I do
Blood through my veins for you ...
I give my world to you...
What you’ve given me
For it there is no measure
Of one thing I am sure
I’ll give my best for you
I think the world of you"
And then she insisted we listen to "Stay." Dave painted a portrait of the perfect carefree day with a beloved:
"... Wasting time
Let the hours roll by
Doing nothing for the fun
Little taste of the good life ...
Makes us want to stay, stay, stay for a while ...
I shall miss these things
When it all rolls by
What a day
Wanna stay, stay, stay for a while ...."
Today, at dawn, at the end of a sleepless night, I stepped silently into the spare bedroom I use as a home office. I found my copy of the CD our beloved Rapunzel rhapsodized over so many years ago. She never did push for me to listen to a later song on the playlist, a piece called "The Stone." I suspect the lyric is the result of a long, despairing gaze into the black abyss – the same blackness that filled my mind as I heard the screaming voice demand that I rescue my Rapunzel:
"... This weighs on me
As heavy as a stone and as blue as I go
I was just wondering if you’d come along...
I need so
To ... see you smile, hold you close
And it weighs on me
As heavy as stone and a bone chilling cold
I was just wondering if you’d come along"
To my everlasting gratitude and relief, she did come along when I asked. By the time the shooter lifted his weapon, she was no longer in his sights.
Rapunzel’s dad did not go to Lane Stadium last night. He was on campus, working quietly as the thousands gathered; he was too watchful to relax and enjoy anyone’s music.
A month after the shootings, some parents were still unable to collect their children’s possessions from dorm rooms. The school locked those few rooms, leaving everything untouched until the parents could either face the task or delegate it.
One day, Rapunzel’s dad stepped through an open dorm room door, thinking he smelled smoke. He found no smoke, no indication of fire or disorder, except for a few scattered bits he would find in any vacated dorm room. Clearly, the parents had finally come to pack up their Rapunzel’s belongings.
Then he saw the carelessly coiled rosary, abandoned, almost as if it had been thrown against the wall before landing in a heap as if it were a string of dropped Mardi Gras beads.
"I think they’re done with God," my husband told me. "I guess I would be, too."