When I happened upon the news feed yesterday of the downed Malaysian jetliner, a great sadness came over me. I didn’t want to think about it too much in an attempt to get through the work day. This morning I was again confronted with more news of yet another 21st Century example of the sheer evil that lives in today’s world. It caused me to remember the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. It’s burned into my mind the video footage of that horror. We all know that when people of a country get caught up in war, there are always those who seem to get pulled into it. But, when there are people who have absolutely nothing to do with anything going on in another country, I cannot find even one brain cell of forgiveness towards the perpetrators of such crimes.
The chilling Facebook account of a young man in the airport in The Netherlands taking a selfie of the plane he was about to board and saying, “This is a photo of the plane in case it disappears.” Did he have some sort of premonition of what was about to take place not but an hour or two later? What must have been the justification for pressing the button that set that horrible chain of events into motion.
I cannot even begin to imagine the great sorrow the families of those innocent victims are going through right now. The greatest hurdle for anyone who is going through a state of mourning, is to come to some sort of justification for the death of a loved one. When there is no justification, then there remains the door of closure that can’t seem to get closed. Every life that is lost in such a fashion sets into motion the ripple effect. It not only affects the immediate family members, but also those who were simply passing acquaintances.
The internal whispering of “Why did this happen?” continues day after day until it is “hard-coded” into the subconscious. The ripple effect takes its toll by crossing over continents and cultures by infecting humanity with the memories of people who for absolutely no reason on earth deserved to have their lives snuffed out by one person’s determination to press a button. Indeed I will remember the murder of 298 people in the state of pure innocence.
