With her head bowed, Jessica Bechtel squeezed a thin white candle between her thumb and forefinger, slightly tipping it away from her so the wax wouldn’t drip on her skin.
But she wasn’t thinking about the candle.
The pre-med freshman was sharing a moment of remembrance on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks with thousands of mourners at the rock on Farm Lane.
“I just felt that I wanted to do something,” she said. “There were a lot of people here. I didn’t expect that.”
ASMSU was not prepared for the outpouring of support from the MSU community either. The group passed out candles but didn’t have nearly enough to accommodate the massive crowd of Spartans who lined the banks of the Red Cedar River on Wednesday night.
“Our focus wasn’t on the extravagant stuff,” ASMSU Student Assembly Chairperson Matt Weingarden said. “The point of the vigil was not to have candles, but to bring students together.”
But the moment of silence did not need candles to ignite emotion.
Katie Stachlewitz attended the first candlelight vigil one year ago. Although she graduated in May, the East Lansing resident said she returned to find closure in the gathering. Rather than attend a church service, Stachlewitz said she chose to come back to reflect with MSU’s diverse community.
“We just wanted to do something other than just watch TV,” said Stachlewitz, who attended the event with a friend. “The vigil is important for other people who didn’t want to remember this in a specifically religious way.”
For others, religion is an integral part of their mourning. Members of the Muslim Students’ Association attended the vigil adorned in green ribbons decorated with the word “Peace.”
“We wanted to come and show that we’re part of a nation that’s mourning,” said Fareeha Shuttari, vice president of the association. “That’s why we’re here and why we’re here together.”
Coming together is what the MSU community does best, MSU President M. Peter McPherson said during his address to the crowd.
“The acts of 9-11 were acts of hatred, but MSU and many other communities responded with acts of tolerance and love,” he said.
The crowds struggled to hear McPherson and the four other speakers through the overflow of spectators. Some students even observed the vigil from across the river.
Tolerance and love were thick on campus Wednesday as students heard the bells of Beaumont Tower strike in memory of each plane hijacked by terrorists a year earlier.
In the course of a year, no one can deny the world has changed, Provost Lou Anna Simon said.
“Today let us pause for a moment and simply say, ‘What can I do to make the world a better place?’” she said.
In an attempt to make the world a better place, MSU students, faculty and staff spent the last year volunteering their time, blood and money to the nation’s recovery.
“The whole thing hit college students in a specific way,” MSU alumnus Nathan Tykocki said. “When it all happened, guys my age, 20-something-years-old, are thinking about drafts and war and all kinds of crazy happenings.”
He said times are tumultuous for students on their own for the first time.
“All we really have is each other,” he said.
Rodney Patterson, director of the Office of Racial Ethnic Student Affairs, reminded those attending the vigil to make connections with one another every day - not just when a national tragedy occurs.
“It shouldn’t take a crisis for us to create a community,” he said. “It shouldn’t take a basketball game to realize we’re a community.
“This isn’t time to blame. It’s not time to point fingers. It’s a time for us to love and connect at the deepest capacity possible. It’s time for us to be a loving community.
“And God Bless America.”
Amy Bartner can be reached at bartnera@msu.edu. Tara May can be reached at maytara@msu.edu.
