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