Things Get Damaged Things Get Broken

Tuesday morning, during my breathtakingly brief commute, I saw a pack of five helicopters hovering, apparently unmoving, overhead and not far off. I tried to gauge where the attention of their occupants might be focused but could only guess. Times being what they are, I noticed the helicopters were not exactly alike, and didn't appear to be military - either way: let the creepy feeling begin. Inside the library, a co-worker explained a five-alarm fire (later, we heard four) was working in Franklin Township on Whittier Avenue. I couldn't place the street, which bothered me. In the meantime, housefires generally do not attract news helicopters. Something else must be up, we sensed, and I say "we" because my co-workers and I worked like huskies that morning, though we talked about nothing else.

A co-worker received an email that a member of his historical society died in that fire, which was very upsetting. Shortly thereafter, a friend who's an EMT in Rhode Island emailed that a fire fighter from his old firehouse had been killed. An EMT friend from North Jersey passed along news from an EMT listserve. The local newspaper had nothing, then a vague, three-sentence write up. The university was silent on the subject of the fallen student volunteer. It was as if this local tragedy created a blast zone in which no one could hear or speak. I expected Wednesday to be the day everyone caught his or her breath and started screaming, and that's what happened.

Funeral arrangements have been made for the fire's elderly victim, Betty Scott, email to that effect circulated. The university's newspaper - for once written in complete sentences - found its voice and wept for all it was worth. The story was horrific, a scenario we all fear. There's no making it an easy or peaceful event we can live with. It is just painful, that's all.

This morning, during my embarrassingly brief commute to work, I came to the intersection of Seminary Place and College Avenue. Directly in front of me, the steps to a building I never really look at were covered with solemn bouquets, a handwritten banner, flags. This was where he lived. With nothing else to do, I turned right and drove to my parking lot.

Yesterday, I arrived at my apartment, scratched the cat and turned on General Hospital, as is my dumb habit. To my utter horror, the episode depicted the funeral of a young police officer. I am not ashamed to say I cried my eyes out, thinking, 'It's not that we are seeing too much of this. We are not seeing the real thing enough.' The televised 9/11 funerals and memorials come to mind with a freshness and an ache that even now surprises me. The soldiers who die and slip into unreported obscurity should pain us all. The absolutely unmourned civilian casualties of our wars should haunt us night and day.

I am speaking very carefully here. These emotions and thoughts are mine. I have no wish to steal and use the difficult deaths of these good neighbors for my own purposes. Their lives had meaning and purpose all their own. Mine is to point out there is nothing unconnected in the great world.