I said it a year ago, and I still believe it’s true today. The news of last year’s tragic car accident that resulted in the deaths of three sorority sisters from Bowling Green was the “you remember where you were when” moment for the Greek community and alumni. As someone who’s loved to write for as long as I’ve been able to spell words, I’m sometimes compelled to jot down my thoughts. I don’t always write because I want to. Sometimes I write because I have to. Not because I have any false sense of self-importance but because I have to express my feelings. Really, I guess when I feel that I need to write, I write for myself. But if the stars align, maybe the things I say can help someone else. When I wrote down what I was feeling about last March’s accident, I assumed my friends (and perhaps a few strangers) would read. What I did not expect were 8,000 views in the first two days.
In the last year, I’ve reread that essay a few times. I don’t think that there was anything inherently great about that particular piece of writing. I don’t think that’s why people read. I think it resonated with people because what I felt was how so many others felt. Sometimes we listen to a certain song because it might resonate with how we feel at a certain time. I think that my post echoed a lot of the things that people who love Bowling Green and the BG Greek community were already feeling. I think that the second reason why it was so widely viewed was the fact that there were countless articles around the nation and around the world. But my essay wasn’t news. It was just one man’s opinion, and while my opinion matters no more than someone else’s, it was a different genre than simply reading the news.
In my own way, I pay tribute today to what happened a year ago. As I post this, it’s surreal to me that the tragedy which awaited was a few minutes away at this moment a year ago. (more…)
