Sometimes out of intense pain comes an intense beauty.
The power of knowing you're not alone, the commonality of grief, the strength of strangers trying to hold you up.
It's a feeling well known at the University of Arizona's College of Nursing, where almost six years ago a failing student shot three professors to death, a horrible event that prompted a massive outpouring of support not only for those directly involved, but for the countless students and community members tied to the college.
When shots rang out at Virginia Tech a year ago Wednesday, UA nursing faculty and students heard them perhaps even louder than the rest of us, and knew even more vividly that their counterparts more than 1,700 miles away would need to know they weren't alone.
That thought grew into a yearlong project that will culminate in and around Virginia Tech today, as volunteers randomly hang 300 handcrafted Ben's Bells for people to find, with tags urging their new owners to spread kindness and support, to let the finders know they aren't alone.
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The Ben's Bells project began in 2003 when a local couple wanted to find a way to honor their son, who died of croup just before his third birthday, in March 2002, and encourage the kindness shown them in their time of loss.
They've since distributed more than 9,000 Ben's Bells throughout Tucson and other cities around the country, including New Orleans. The project also travels to schools, companies and other spots for mass bell-making sessions.
Nursing faculty members contacted the couple with their idea and the project grew to include students and other staff members. The group spent dozens of days and nights since then helping to make the bells that will go to Virginia.
"Speaking for myself, I felt it was very important to reach out and return some of the kindness that had been provided to the college when we had our shootings," said Kevin Button, coordinator of information technology for the College of Nursing. "People were reaching out not only locally but nationally and beyond, and so for me, it was important to continue that, to pay forward that kindness.
"For me, it's like a counterbalance in some ways," he said. "Just as a negative effect, something violent, has a ripple effect, the same is true of something good and positive. We have to continue to love one another. Otherwise, I think we're lost."
On April 16, 2007, a mentally disturbed student killed 32 victims and wounded two dozen others at Virginia Tech before he committed suicide.
Ben's mother, Jeannette Maré-Packard, decided immediately that she wanted to work with nursing faculty members when they approached her.
"Whenever something major happens in the world, I think everybody who's experienced massive tragedy in their lives experiences it in a different way than they did before. That's not to say that I know how they're feeling, but I do know what it's like to have your life fall apart.
"We thought sending bells to Virginia Tech would be a non-intrusive way of showing our love and support for those people. We hope that a little bit of magic comes out of the bells and helps their lives in whatever way it can."
Seven people will travel from Tucson to participate in the distribution. They'll run it much the way the random distributions have gone here, hanging bells in public spots for strangers to find. They'll concentrate mostly on the community of Blacksburg and leave the campus to Virginia Tech students who are working with them through a service fraternity there, Alpha Phi Omega.
Four of the local participants are members of the UA chapter of the fraternity. The whole effort was helped with a $5,000 grant from Citibank.
"Being able to bring the whole mission of Ben's Bells out there by handing out the bells and spreading kindness is so amazing," said one of the UA members, Jenna Stevens, a junior majoring in marketing with a Spanish minor. She's worked with the Ben's Bells program for about a year and a half and is the student representative on its board of directors.
"It's such a powerful thing to be able to spread kindness," she said. "It's such a little act, finding a bell, but it has such power behind it."
The president of the fraternity's Virginia Tech chapter, Jen Huband, said she hopes the act will help people better cope with the anniversary. They decided to do the distribution on the 13th so that people will keep finding them as the actual anniversary on Wednesday approaches.
"I think it will be great for students," said the senior, who will graduate in May with degrees in human development and psychology. "Someone who may have known someone or been directly affected, they may find one and it will turn their thoughts away for a little while or make them smile. I think the little things will help."
Classes at Virginia Tech are canceled on Wednesday, and memorial events are planned.
"People are moving forward, but they're moving forward at their own pace," said Huband. "Everyone is dealing with it differently."
Maré-Packard just hopes to help that process.
"We don't expect the bells will save the world, or cure anyone's broken heart," she said. "But we hope that they will help the people, the students, the faculty, the staff, remember and recognize that there are people all over this world who are thinking of them.
"Out of this much pain has to come some beauty, the beauty of people who stand up and support others and keep remembering for a very, very long time."
DID YOU KNOW
This isn't the first time Ben's Bells have traveled outside of Tucson.
There have been delivered around the state, including Phoenix and Flagstaff. They also have gone to Portland, Ore., San Diego, New Orleans, spots in Hawaii, New York City and Washington, D.C. They've even traveled internationally, with distributions in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico, and Venezuela recently.
• To learn more about Ben's Bells, go to www.bensbells.org
