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Writings about the April 16, 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech often emphasize the cold and windy weather. This is also ingrained in my own memories of the day my husband, Jamie, was killed. I woke up that Monday morning hearing rain pounding our roof. Jamie and I had discussed for a while whether we should get a new roof. There had been a leak around the chimney that a friend and Jamie had fixed. We wondered whether it was only a matter of time before other leaks appeared. That morning, while still in bed listening to the heavy rain, I said to Jamie, “Maybe we should just go ahead and get a new roof. It would make us less stressed out over the rain.” After Jamie's death it would have been up to me to follow through with this idea, but in the aftermath of April 16 I had neither the energy nor the strength to deal with the roof replacement. I hoped it would hold a bit longer. Often I saw it as a metaphor of myself. I had to weather extreme conditions since Jamie lost his life under such horrific circumstances, some so severe that I thought I would not be able to make it through. But I am still here; I am still standing.
Because of the rain, we spent most of the weekend indoor, except for an early Sunday afternoon hike at Pandapas Pond four miles from Blacksburg, the location of Virginia Tech. We went with Susan and Tim, a couple we had been hanging out with over the past two months.1 During the hike the weather got worse. Not only was it wet but also cold—so cold that Jamie and Susan, both tall and slender, started joking about the