In small numbers, mourners crossed the expansive green Drill Field to the makeshift memorial that they call The Wall.
The Virginia Tech campus was quiet. Classes were closed and most of the 26,000 students have left to escape the sadness that hangs over this small mountain town. Those that remain wondered how the university and its students will move on.
“I have no idea how,” said Thomas Rossmeissl, 20, a sophomore from Warrenton. “I honestly don’t.”
Classes will resume Monday, though there are reminders everywhere of the worst school massacre in American history: The dorm where Cho Seung-Hui took the lives of his first two victims; the classrooms where Cho completed his rampage before taking his own life; the room where he videotaped himself and planned his horrific fantasies; the bloodstains on the sidewalk outside Norris Hall where Cho’s victims were dragged.
University officials said Thursday that students might be allowed to end the semester immediately with the grades they had at the time. The school also will award degrees posthumously to victims.
Alan Glick, an associate director of recreational sports, said he worried about the students and families most affected by the shootings.
“One messed-up kid with a couple of guns is not going to change the fact that Virginia Tech is a great university and Blacksburg is a beautiful community in a beautiful part of the country,” Glick said. “But you just don’t know how the families are going to deal with this stuff.”
Glick has been visiting the Drill Field to pay his respects to the fallen 32 and to be with fellow Hokies.
In the center of the Drill Field, under two large maroon and white striped tents, rest nine white boards filled with thousands of inscriptions. The messages scrawled in red and black ink are short: “You will never be forgotten but always be missed,” and “Once a Hokie, always a Hokie.”
Nearby, four young women wearing the Hokie colors hugged each other in a tight huddle and sobbed quietly.
