It’s sobering and strange, these connections to people we have. In the last few years, three separate tragedies have kind of scuffed my life by taking people that were peripherally connected to me in some way.
On September 11, Joe Ferguson was on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. I knew Joe through work.
One of the victims of the Washington sniper attacks was Linda Franklin, a neighbor who lived a few hundred feet away from me.
And the former president of the organization for which I work was aboard the water taxi that capsized last week in Baltimore. His daughter and almost-son-in-law are among the missing and presumed dead.
I don’t know what the significance of this is, and while it makes me pause, reflect, and mourn, it has little impact on my life other than the sobering realization that human life has been lost. That in and of itself is a little bit bothersome, because it shows in a concrete way how life continues, how we go on after someone is gone and just incorporate the knowledge of their death into our own experience.
It’s just a little closer to home these days.
