The Umpqua Community College Shooting Incident Pt. 2 · 8:36pm Oct 7th, 2015
This was written six days after the shooting
Hey guys, Kablam here again with my update of how I feel about the shooting that happened almost a week ago. It’s a little strange going back to that moment in life. It feels like it almost didn’t happen. Some of my auto-buddies have made comments about the surreality of the whole situation.
I remember one evening that was only a day or two afterwards where we were standing outside at one of the smoke shacks that we have on center and we were (for some reason) staring up at the starry night sky. One of the second year auto students I was standing with made a comment about even though everything was so peaceful that night, it was crazy how just earlier it was a hectic mess.
Some of us took the shooting a little harder than others though. We had a bunch of people take some ‘Emergency leave’ days over this last week. some of them just saw this as an opportunity to go home and relax while others wanted to see some family for a little bit to help recover from the trauma. One guy apparently broke down crying before he went home. He was one of the more brash and self-assured guys in our group (at least, that’s how he always acted and looked that way) and was one of the last people I expected to break down crying. On the bus ride back to center on the day of the shooting, he revealed that he once had a girlfriend who died in a previous shooting; I can't remember if it was another school shooting or not. But he explicitly said that he just wanted to not talk about the shooting too much and just wanted to forget about it.
But he was the same guy who broke down crying while on the phone and I am proud to say that another unlikely thing happened as well. We have one guy in our group who we like to call our ‘Prince of Darkness’ or ‘Darkness’ for short because he always wears black, loves the darkness, is what I would consider a bit of a goth, is very critical and smart, and yet somehow still has a heart deep down somewhere in his black world. He was also on the phone next to the guy who started crying and he took it upon himself to pause his phone conversation and give him a well-needed hug.
It just goes to show that these big events can bring out the unexpected in a person and I am so proud that we were able to stick together through this like a family. And we kind of are because we joke about how our dorm staff is one of our ‘Mom’s as well as our counselor being our ‘Auto-Mom’ or is our ‘Autobot Mother’.
The following Monday, everyone was given the opportunity to go back to the campus to collect anything that we had to leave behind during the lock-down and evacuation. I was excited to get all my stuff back and when I did, I felt like I was back up to running at 100% again. I didn’t have to start over with reacquiring everything that I left at the campus like a laptop, my good MP3 player and headphones, and my preferred USB stick with about 8GB of space; yeah I know, that’s small compared to today’s standards but it’s mine and I like it.
I was feeling good and when we got back to center I decided to call home again to let them know how I was doing and call my old martial arts studio that I had worked and lived at for five years of my life. Mom was happy that I was feeling better and glad that I got all my stuff back. Once I finished talking with her, I called up my old martial arts studio.
I wasn’t able to talk with one of my good friends or my master, but I did learn a few things that had happened while I was gone. My coworker and one of my best friends no longer worked there and it was just the master teaching now. And from the way things sounded, it wasn’t a very pleasant leaving.
I felt myself go numb from hearing this and I sort of just went into a daze. My mind was racing and asking the same question over and over again; what happened while I was gone? After I had dinner, I searched through my phone’s contact list and found my coworker’s phone number and dialed him up to ask what happened. It took a bit, but I was finally able to talk with him.
I knew that he was struggling a bit with some of the masters over how some things should be done, but I was hoping that it was simply a case of ‘A new school opened up and he was moved to be the head instructor there’. Unfortunately, my worries came true when he told me that he had a large disagreement with the grand master. So he decided that he had enough and left to go back to school and further his education.
It was a shock to hear such a thing happen, but I was glad that I finally got some information and wasn’t panicking in the dark wondering what went down.
It’s kind of funny to me; that a school shooting happening right outside our door barely affected me and a simple thing like my coworker and best friend leaving our studio hurts me more. I guess it came down to investment in the two things. I didn’t really know anyone at the college enough outside of my auto-buddies to be worried about them. I haven’t even been there for more than two terms. But the martial arts school that I went to, I had put five years of hard work, sweat, blood, and money into it. It was like my second family that I had grown to know and love and I had done so much with them. I had gone to competitions with them as both teammates and rivals. I’ve travelled around the world to South Korea for international competition and all over the U.S. for various national tournaments. So hearing someone leave in such a manner was like losing a family member.
It still feels funny seeing the difference in scale between a shooting and a coworker leaving can have vastly different effects on me.
I’m still glad that I made it through the shooting unharmed and my condolences still go out the families most affected by it. I just hope that we still pull back from this and come out stronger than before.
Thanks again for reading my journey through this unfortunate event in life. I hope you all are doing well and continue to grow in good ways.
I will see you all in the next chapter.
It is a shame of what happened at your college, and I would like to say that my heart gos to the victims and love ones as well as those affected by the tragedy. It is sad to see peoples how to decide to lash out their frustrations against the world around with violence, and that their couldn't find a better way to relive what was turmoiling so much so that they didn't care anymore for others anymore.