Losses Made Mine
Yesterday morning I saw an update from the New York Times on Facebook talking about an airplane that had just crashed over the French Alps. As the hours wore on more information came in. It was a low-cost German airline flying from Barcelona to Düsseldorf. There were a hundred fifty souls on board. At least forty-five were Spanish, around sixty German and another forty of other nationalities, including Turks who were living in Germany. But during the afternoon other details came in, including that two opera singers were returning after performing a Wagner opera at the Liceu in Barcelona, and that one of them was returning with her husband and baby. Another detail was that eleven high school students with two of their teachers were returning home after an exchange with a high school near Barcelona.
The stories were all saddening, but, somehow, that story threatened to drag me into an agony of empathetic despair. The kids were around fifteen and sixteen years old and I remembered when my daughter went on an exchange to a high school in Greece when she was thirteen. Kids the same age as those Germans have travelled this week from our town to London, also on exchange. Their parents, oh their parents! I can just see them in my mind's eye, driving to Düsseldorf, going to pick up their sons and daughters at the airport. I can see myself, driving to pick up my daughter, and my neighbors, going to pick up their children. The news arriving on the radio, perhaps. The anguish of those who haven't heard it, seeing the flight with no news of imminent arrival on the boards in the airport. Those who have, arriving at the airport, expecting it to be another flight. Putting myself in their shoes, my heart exploding when fears become truths. The agony of being the parent of a teenager whom you entrust to others on their first steps into the outside world without you, and receiving news that is blacker than the deepest ocean in your heart. The only news you will reject and reject, over and over again because if there is a God it cannot happen. And if there isn't a God nature simply wouldn't allow it to happen.
Forgive me for my rant. I'm a mother.
The stories were all saddening, but, somehow, that story threatened to drag me into an agony of empathetic despair. The kids were around fifteen and sixteen years old and I remembered when my daughter went on an exchange to a high school in Greece when she was thirteen. Kids the same age as those Germans have travelled this week from our town to London, also on exchange. Their parents, oh their parents! I can just see them in my mind's eye, driving to Düsseldorf, going to pick up their sons and daughters at the airport. I can see myself, driving to pick up my daughter, and my neighbors, going to pick up their children. The news arriving on the radio, perhaps. The anguish of those who haven't heard it, seeing the flight with no news of imminent arrival on the boards in the airport. Those who have, arriving at the airport, expecting it to be another flight. Putting myself in their shoes, my heart exploding when fears become truths. The agony of being the parent of a teenager whom you entrust to others on their first steps into the outside world without you, and receiving news that is blacker than the deepest ocean in your heart. The only news you will reject and reject, over and over again because if there is a God it cannot happen. And if there isn't a God nature simply wouldn't allow it to happen.
Forgive me for my rant. I'm a mother.
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