In a free and open society there is no way to stop a solitary madman intent on committing mass murder; what matters is how we deal with the aftermath. Virginia Polytechnic Institute's extended family offers a template of amazing grace.

Only hours after senior Cho Seung-Hui killed 27 fellow students, five professors and himself in a cross-campus rampage at the Blacksburg, Va., school, it was clear to those of us watching the horror on television that survivors' reactions were grounded not only in shock and grief, but also in love.

Just hours after the shootings, VT's young people were doing all the things we now know the shooter did not do: Reaching out, they held and consoled one another, connected with frantic family members, poured out their grief and fear to peers, loved ones and experts who rushed to help.

Cho's derangement festered in isolation; the deadly result of his narcissistic self-hatred has unified the Virginia Tech family in a fiercely loyal determination to heal itself.

"Before it was about who to blame or what could have been done different, it was about how do we take care of each other," Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said Tuesday at a memorial convocation in the VT basketball arena. "As you wrestle with sadness and despair, do not lose hold of Virginia Tech as a community. Do not let the Virginia Tech community be a victim of what happened yesterday."

"We are all in pain," Imam Sedki Riad told mourners at the memorial. "The children of Adam and Eve are all united in pain."

Buddhist, Jewish and Christian speakers echoed the Islamic leader's words.

"Do not let this tear us apart," the Rev. Bill King of the local Lutheran Church said. "As we reclaim our campus let us deny the shooter the power to rob us of all we have loved about our campus and community.

The light of love shines in the darkness, and darkness has not overcome us."

It is hard for anyone, particularly young people mostly still untouched by evil, to see life beyond immediate pain and loss, especially when their grief is inflicted on them by random, inexplicable violence.

Evil acts, such as those Cho committed with what witnesses described as a "blank face," and what we now know from his videotaped diatribe mailed to NBC were deliberate and long-planned, force us to remember there are always mentally ill people among us. Right now, on other campuses, in shopping malls, government buildings, and on any street, men and women want to harm us, murder us, eliminate us from this earth for no logical reason.

Every time a shooter attempts to shred our multi-ethnic society with a 9 mm semi-automatic Glock 19 bought almost as easily as a McDonald's Big Mac, we are reminded of the tenuous, fragile nature of life.

As much as I want private ownership of handguns and automatic assault rifles banned in America, I know it won't happen; amorphous fear, a Goliath gun lobby, and our Bunker Hill tradition will always trump law enforcement statistics and common sense.

So I have to take heart elsewhere.

This past week, the students, faculty, administration and volunteers of Virginia Tech gave me many reasons to believe that, despite their incalculable loss, the basic goodness they keep revealing through their love and concern for one another is stronger than anybody's hate.

I have no doubt attorneys already are on the scene; where journalists lead, litigation follows. VT President Charles Seger is under attack for his failure to order a campus lock-down after the first two deaths, which occurred two hours before the final carnage halfway across campus.

The school's law enforcement department is being accused of dereliction of duty for not heeding 2005 warnings from students, professors, and mental health professionals that Cho's erratic behavior indicated he was a potential danger to others as well as himself.

Like a burst aneurysm, Cho's violence will continue to affect the overall health of a school that, until this week, appeared to the world as a picture-book institution of higher learning in an idyllic setting.

Listening closely to survivors' stories, hearing heroic details of how lost professors and students tried to save one another, I feel my own tears sting my eyes. I -- a stranger connected to a place I've never been and people I have never met by universal humanity -- am also comforted and inspired by the passion of the memorial convocation's final speaker, poet-in-residence Nikki Giovanni:

"We are Virginia Tech…
"We are strong and brave and innocent…
"We will prevail, we will prevail, we will prevail. WE ARE VIRGINIA TECH."

This week, we are all Virginia Tech.