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

