Comments on: Airline Crashes … When the Bridge of San Luis Rey Collapses Under You!

By: Chantell Borwig

Chantell Borwig — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 21:01:23 +0000

This whole thing is a huge tragedy. My thoughts and prayers are with the Polish people in this tough time while they grieve. May God help them.

By: Claire Nail

Claire Nail — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 08:10:04 +0000

Another book from high school comes to mind: Our Town, by Thornton Wilder. Perhaps you remember how the young girl who died, revisited an ordinary day in Our Town and was frustrated by how little everyone around her took life for granted. The question when you get on that fatal flight may not be “is your time up?” but have you lived enough of the life you were given?

By: Mike Savage

Mike Savage — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:32:57 +0000

I’m reading Robert Hopcke’s “There are NO Accidents” right now and it offers an interesting, Jungian, perspective. Who is the author of my story? And when do I get the death scene written in? I trust that when the scene’s time comes, I will choose the dignity of animals who stare death in the face and submit to the Author’s decision.

Note from the author of The Cure for Jet Lag: Hi, Mike. Sounds like a fascinating book, though I suspect some of us might go down fighting.

By: Maralyn Rittenour

Maralyn Rittenour — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:20:15 +0000

Lynne, I was overjoyed to be reminded of that magnificent book which my mother encouraged me to read in my teens.

As a more-or-less practicing Catholic, I should believe in heaven and hell. Not sure that I do. However, I do believe that each and every one of our deaths is pre-ordained. Death itself is the ultimate unknown. My mother on her deathbed pronounced cynically that she would find out before the rest of us.

She and I escaped death together during WWII because she managed (literally) to miss the boat, “The Empress of Britain”, sailing from Cape Town which was torpedoed off the coast of S. Africa 24 hours later. There were no survivors. In my teens I survived a usually fatal brain hemorrhage, which left me with a heightened appreciation of life, a fact remarked on by many of the survivors of the Miracle on the Hudson,. We all need to celebrate life, not knowing when our Appointment in Samara will be.

Note from the author of The Cure for Jet Lag: Well, that’s a pretty harrowing story. Something like that happened to my father in WWII. He got appendicitis and couldn’t ship out. His ship went down with all hands aboard. And that brain hemorrhage! So young. Not only do we need to celebrate life, it sounds like we need to have our affairs in order on any given day or, as my late, great aunt would say, “Make sure your dresser drawers are tidy before you leave the house.”

By: Russell Bittner

Russell Bittner — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 04:18:26 +0000

Lynne,

These are all questions with no answers.

But my question for you is: How can 28 of 24 passengers die?

I’m workin’ the math.

Russell

Note from the Author of The Cure for Jet Lag: Thanks for catching the error, Russell. I fixed it!

By: Mary Jane

Mary Jane — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:29:53 +0000

I think it was Channel 13 that had a series of shows about the human brain and how it reacts to various situations. Have you ever had a near-death experience, for example, a car accident? My understanding is that the brain perceives what is going on in a kind of “slow motion,” the better to focus on the situation and drive out extraneous thoughts during the crisis. The reaction gives people time NOT to panic and think clearly.

By: Kirsten

Kirsten — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 20:16:16 +0000

Everybody living may know in their front brain that each of us is going to die some day. I don’t believe for a minute that rational understanding helps us when someone we love leaves the planet. My husband died a year and a half ago; grieving has been a full time job. The thing about the plane crash is that it does not seem inevitable that any particular person had to die at that time in that way. But that’s the truth of any particular death. Many people die of cancer, but I was unprepared for my husband to die of lymphoma one month to the day after he was diagnosed. In the case of the plane crash it particularly strains credulity to discover that a woman whose husband died on 9/11— the woman who has been in the news as an advocate for those grieving the deaths of the people who happened to die in the twin towers — should have died in that plane. Reality is stranger than fiction.

I was surprised to see the pictures of those who died in the crash on the front page of the New York Times. (Maybe we were meant to stop thinking of the economy for a minute and be glad we’re not dead.) Before my husband died I had been going to a site that named and briefly described each civilian death, who it was and where it occurred, in Iraq; I thought as a citizen of the country that started the war I was morally obligated to know the cost. But I had to stop — it was too heartbreaking.

I don’t think the lesson we’re meant to learn is to stop flying in airplanes or crossing bridges, but to cherish each life and protect each other as best we can.

Note from the Author of The Cure for Jet Lag: Oh, Kirsten. I’m so sad for you. Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment. Grief knows no bounds.

By: Ayun

Ayun — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:05:19 +0000

I had no idea Thornton Wilder wrote that book, and though I know the title, I had never read it. (conflated w/ the bridge over river kwai, in my mind…. when I was on the river kwai, I heard all about the movie. less so the book.) Bet I’m not the only one who will seek it out as a result of this post.

I think these awful, unexpected moments are why we tell and read stories. and they are what the keep the stories interesting, hair raising, tear jerking, serendipitous, bittersweet, sometimes even blackly comic///

Your vet is right. it’s the flipside of everything being born (and why newborn babies, those strange little ministers from Mars, are to be revered.) (This is not a pro-,life position, it’s a pro-newborn-baby-as-bizarre-and-compelling-individual position.)

Note from the Author of The Cure for Jet Lag: Ayun, thank you for dropping by my new Web site and blog. It’s been a while since I have heard from you. By the way, my vet may have been right that everything dies, but I changed vets!