Yesterday morning at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) twenty-nine people were injured, and thirty-three murdered in the largest, most fearsome massacre in the history of school shootings in the US. One among the fallen was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. This does not make her special, or set her apart from the other victims, it simply intensifies the pain and loss that I feel, and personalizes the attack for me.
Another of the slain was a man of great personal and academic achievement, as well as tremendous scholarly merit. As a native and escapee of Communist Romania, and a survivor of the Holocaust, he had an incredible understanding of the value of life, and lived his accordingly. He was the recipient of many engineering and science awards from multiple countries, including Romania, Armenia, the Ukraine, Italy, and the United States. He held multiple diplomas for his achievements in science, and held the title of Doctor Honoris Causa of the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest, Romania. He was named in the Who's Who of Engineering, Science and Engineering, America, and the World. He was a member of the editorial board for multiple Academic Journals, Chair and Co-Chair of international engineering committees, and on multiple advisory boards and international organizing committees. He taught many courses at Virginia Tech, and had published many books and journals.
His wife was named Marlena, and his son was Joe. Even while in Romania, he stood out, refusing to swear allegiance to the Communist regime. while working at a government aerospace company. Later, when he was fired for asking to move to Israel, the Israeli Prime Minister himself intervened to get an emigration permit for his family.
He must have been amazing to talk to, or even to listen to. Lectures must have been incredible. Imagine being able to look deep into the eyes of one so acutely aware of both the most evil acts of man, as well as some of the greatest acts of kindness that one person can bestow upon another. To have such knowledge, and then to sacrifice oneself to save a room full of students so that they too can feel the effect of the goodness of mankind is purely divine. Those students who were saved by him must surely mourn the loss of such a god.
But to be able to look into those eyes, and see all they have seen, and then chose to ravage and destroy such an existence is stupefying to me. There is a certain feeling that hunters describe when the animal they have been stalking turns and looks at them eye to eye, or when the view the animal looking majestic, that consumes them, makes them want to cry, and incapacitates them for a moment, and they don't shoot. It is a certain awe-filled reverence that apparently played no part in this massacre. And who does he think he is, he who dares destroy that? He is not worthy of standing in the same room. Why is it that he is granted the power to remove such a force of good from the world? How has it come about that one with a character so weak as to be so consumed by pain, or terror, or whatever emotion it was and driven to such madness can overcome such a potent being?
At that very moment, when the trigger was tugged, and the hammer dropped, and the bullet started its rotation, and when it emerged from its steel bed to burrow into the man who stood in its way, there was an indisputable balance. This moment marked a meeting of pure goodness with encompassing ill intent. Both were destroyed in this clash, but the goodness lives on. It lives in the hearts of every one of those who escaped because of the actions of this man, and it lives on in the faith in it that has been reinforced, and it lives on even in the way the aggression was extinguished.
Many lives have been changed by Liviu Librescu. With a single act of selfless kindness his influence has reached back to Romania, to the scientific communities worldwide, to Jerusalem, and even to Santa Cruz, into the heart and soul of a poet, and has reinstated Life.
Human existence was created so that people like Liviu Librescu could demonstrate such goodness. If there is a meaning to life it is so we can feel so alive as we have been made to feel. Even through pain are we living, and that is simply why we live.
