Pan Am 103

I was a student at Syracuse University on December 21, 1988.  It was time for fall semester finals and those who were left on campus were knee deep in their studies or were packing to go home.  The phone rang at the sorority and my friend, who worked at the campus radio station, was on the other end.  A plane coming from London had gone down with a number of SU students who were heading home from their semester abroad.  There were no details, no names yet.  She would keep us posted.

We immediately huddled around the TVs and turned on the news and waited and waited and waited.  As the hours went by, we heard all they knew about the when, and the where, and even the how.  But we were waiting for the who.  There were a lot of who's.  243 passengers, 16 crew and 11 citizens in Lockerbie, Scottland.  I made a list of all the people that I knew who were abroad that semester.  There were so many.  As they eventually displayed the list of victims, 35 of them were students.  When they had finished, I had one checkmark on my list.  One person I knew personally would not be returning, Cynthia Smith.  But 34 others that I had walked beside on campus would not be coming back either. 

That moment in time.  That split second explosion shattered a plane, and the passengers, and a neighborhood on the other side of the sea, and thousands of hearts all over the world.  The horror of how it went down was in many ways more terrifying than the fact that it went down at all.  It was unimaginable.  And as unimaginably horrible as it was and is, and forever will be, it was also a glue that bound a lot of people together.  It bonded us tightly then, but even over the years, when this date comes around every year, you remember that the bonds still exist.  The only comparison that I can give is that it was not unlike the days following 9-11 on a much smaller scale.  People were walking around numb.  Petty differences and grievances disappeared.  The worst sometimes brings out the best in people. 

So today, I raise a glass to those who did not return.  I send heartfelt condolences to the families around the world who were touched by this horror.  I send thanks to the men and women of Lockerbie, Scottland, for their tireless efforts of long ago and for their friendship ever since.  And to my friends from SU who are part of this tragic history with me, I miss you and I know we will always remember.