3 — Wednesday, March 9, 2022 // The Statement
ILLUSTRATION BY TAMARA TURNER
PAGE LAYOUT BY SARAH CHUNG
Content warning: Mentions of gun violence, school
shooting.
I grew up in Oxford, Michigan. For better or worse,
this town is my hometown. I used to complain about
how boring it was, how nothing ever happened. We all
did. God, how I wished that hadn’t changed.
On Nov. 30, 2021, an Oxford High School student
brought a gun to school and opened fire, injuring 11
people and killing four students. The events of this
tragedy took place in under 10 minutes. Within those
minutes, my baby sister and the rest of her chemistry
class were ushered out the window and down the
street to safety.
Luck feels like
the wrong way to
describe her relationship with these events; she was
not lucky to be merely classrooms away from such
violence.
But I was able to go home and hug my sister that
night, when an unforgivable number of families were
not able to do the same. Their loss is one I cannot fath-
om, and one I will not try to claim or portray through
my words.
***
As an American public school student, school
shootings, with such precedents as Sandy Hook and
Parkland, are no longer
surprises. But they all
leave their impact on us.
Each time, I mourned for
the losses and felt close
to the pain of the loss of
those students.
After the Parkland
shooting, which took
17 lives, many other
students at OHS and I
gathered before school
to honor and grieve those
lost. Splattered across the
news and social media,
it is easy to feel like you
understand the impact,
the reverberations of these sorts of events.
I never quite expected a school shooting to happen
in my community, and I naively thought I had an idea
of what it would mean to experience it personally. I
was wrong.
Plenty has been said about those 10 minutes, and
even more about the events leading up to them. Far
less has been said about what happened to our com-
munity afterwards, but it is something that often
comes up in conversation with my family. Through-
out the weeks and many conversations with my sister,
we have come to see patterns in the often ignored feel-
ings and moments, and these are what I want to share
with you.
***
They don’t talk about what it means to experience a
tragedy as a community.
Minutes after it was announced in the press con-
ference that three people, students, children, had
died, I began making calls. In the dim light of my
apartment, the blinds drawn and my roommate held
close, it still didn’t quite feel real. Scrolling through
Instagram and my contacts list, I placed calls to any
name I recognized from high school. To anyone and
everyone that I could get ahold of who had family or
friends in our high school.
One of the first people I called was a girl I had
known since kindergarten but hadn’t spoken to for
over a year since leaving for college. We were friends in
the way kids are in a small town; we grew up together
yet were never that close.
“Hey.” Her voice wavered as she accepted the call.
“Kyle?” Her brother. Tears falling down my face, I
couldn’t bring myself to ask.
“He’s fine, he’s OK,” she sobbed. “Abbey?” My little
sister.
“She’s OK, she’s OK.” The sobs overwhelmed us
both.
What stands out most about this call — a moment I
have often thought about since — is our parting words.
“Paige?” she asked, still hoarse, voice quiet. I
remember being huddled like a ball on the couch,
hunched tight around my phone.
“Yeah?”
“I love you,” she said, much stronger now, adamant.
“I love you too,” I said, pushing as much feeling as I
could into the words.
Driving home that night, I would call many more
people who I hadn’t spoken to in years. College had
caused us to drift apart, but one moment had yanked
us back together, the shared trauma taut like a string
between us. It was a pain that stretched between us,
an unimaginable pain, but it was one we shared.
These bonds stretched from the physical into the
digital realm, too. For days, weeks, the tragedy over-
whelmed my social media feed.
But, more than the activism or awareness I expect-
ed, there were posts meant to support the community.
BY PAIGE HODDER, MANAGING EDITOR
What they don’t talk about
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
ILLUSTRATION BY ERIN SHI
PAGE LAYOUT BY SARAH CHUNG
Content warning: Mentions of gun violence, school
shooting.
When I first met my dorm floormates my fresh-
man year, the interaction was a flurry of quick
introductions on a few predictable topics. When the
conversation inevitably arrived at “Where are you
from?” I was shocked to find that almost all of the
girls did not like their hometown. They shared a vari-
ety of negative sentiments about their high school,
neighborhood or the people in their town — and col-
lectively agreed that they were happy to leave it all
behind. They were relishing their mutual hatred for
their former lives so much that I actually began to feel
left out — because I loved my hometown. I love my
hometown.
Oxford, Michigan, was the best town to grow
up in. Every place has its pitfalls and shortcomings,
but I’ve always felt like Oxford consisted mainly of
good people and a supportive community. Teachers
remember your name years after you’ve been their
student; they also recognize your siblings right when
they walk into the classroom. Our coaching staff is full
of Oxford alumni who came back after successful col-
lege and professional careers to give back to the pro-
grams that gave them their start. A large portion of my
friends’ parents and my teachers were Oxford gradu-
ates, and now raise their families there.
To me, Oxford has always been a safe place to return
to, and I know that a lot of people would echo that sen-
timent. I have always been proud to call Oxford my
home, the kind of place where you can go to the home-
coming game and see all of your teachers, coaches
and extended family members coming out to reunite
and sup-
port the
school.
The
restau-
rants and
stores
down-
town
would
close for
parades,
cater
events and host fundraisers for school programs.
The administration and other staff members would
subject themselves to falling in dunk tanks or getting
smacked with pies in the face for our charity events,
and were front and center playing games at our pep
assemblies. The Ddean of Sstudents knew almost
everyone by name, and there wasn’t one teacher who
wouldn’t open up their classroom for a student at
lunch if they needed extra help with work, or even just
some quiet time alone.
While I certainly do not claim that Oxford is a per-
fect school or community, I am proud to be from this
place that fosters so many wonderful things; this feel-
ing has only grown stronger following recent events.
Reflecting on that long-ago “hometown talk” I
encountered innumerable times during move-in
weekend, I remember that when I said I was from
Oxford,
Michigan,
the
only
responses
were
a
bunch
of
blank looks
and “where’s
that” com-
ments, even
from
the
girls
who
were
also
from Michigan. For my first few years at U-M, that
was how it went; unless they were from the immedi-
ate surrounding area, most people didn’t recognize
the name. Of course, now it’s a different story.
After the events of November 30, everyone has
heard of Oxford — on every news channel, trend-
ing on Twitter and Instagram under the hashtag
#OxfordStrong for weeks after the event. It’s such
an odd feeling to go from having no one think twice
when you say where you’re from to suddenly facing a
variety of responses: pity, sadness, shock and even no
acknowledgement at all.
A few weeks ago, I was talking with my little sis-
ter, a sophomore at Oxford this year. She noted that,
following the event, it was strange going to her travel
volleyball practices with her teammates from other
schools, sensing that they were all looking at her and
thinking about it the whole time. She also told me that
even now she feels hesitant to say where she is from
because she doesn’t know how other people will react.
Despite this, we both agree that, although sharing the
name of our hometown carries a different weight now,
it is still one packed with love, pride and resilience.
In these past few months, the community of
Oxford has done a lot of healing, aided by a surplus of
support locally, statewide and nationally. Surrounding
schools and organizations have hosted fundraisers,
crafted apparel emblazoned with the “Oxford Strong”
slogan, sent gift baskets to teachers and students
(according to my sister) and made donations to many
of the GoFundMe pages that were created. Troy High
School even did a charity week to help Oxford fund its
prom and other student activities. At the college and
professional level, the Oxford block O with four hearts
(in honor of the four students whose lives were lost)
could be seen adorning jerseys and T
-shirts. During
BY MCKENZIE MILLER, STATEMENT CONTRIBUTOR
A love letter to Oxford
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com