Plane crash sets off a long tail of grief

Wreckage from the midair collision in the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport Thursday, in Washington. Credit: AP/Petty Officer 2nd Class Taylor Bacon
The tail of tragedy is long, as we are unfortunately reminded too often.
After fires in Los Angeles and hurricanes in the Southeast, now we have the midair crash of an American Airlines passenger jet and a military helicopter over the Potomac River in Washington. A collision like this is a different type of tragedy. The event itself lasts but a few seconds. Its suddenness and finality are shocking.
But in the aftermath come the stories.
Kim Urban, a Virginia mom whose family was friends with another couple and whose daughters were figure skaters who trained with the other couple's daughters, Everly, 14, and Alydia, 11, spoke for all of us as she tried to comprehend that all four — the mother, father, and both girls — were now dead. "We looked at them and we saw ourselves," she told CNN.
Many of us do the same in the wake of such disasters. We tell ourselves that it could have been us in that plane, or in that home that burned down, or in that neighborhood now washed away. We scan the faces and read the bios, seeking kinship while honoring lives now taken.
The plane from Wichita, Kansas was carrying husbands and wives, sons and daughters. Steamfitters and attorneys and a group of duck hunters returning from an annual trip. A woman coming home after being at her mother's side for a surgical procedure. Parents flying in to visit their daughter at college. A woman who caught an early flight home so that she could go out on a date to celebrate her birthday with her long-term boyfriend. A college student returning from her grandfather's funeral. And 14 young figure skaters, coaches and parents on their way back from a camp for promising youngsters that followed the national championships last weekend in that city.
In that rich tapestry of lives, one could find experiences that mirror our experiences. Dreams that reflect ours. Details of living that may parallel our own. All things that help shape our grief.
Whether it is up close or at a distance, mourning is fraught and complex. One wonders whether the grief in this case is compounded by the certainty that the crash was preventable? By the many previous warnings from aviation experts that record air travel, an overcrowded airspace, and a severe lack of experienced flight controllers was an ominous combination? By the recent litany of close calls and near-crashes? By the baseless and deplorable words from the nation's president blaming political opponents for the deaths of their loved ones while they were still in the initial throes of grief?
One wonders whether relief will be possible, and if so, when.
The Skating Club of Boston lost six members of its family that night — two skaters, two mothers, and two coaches. On the morning after the crash, 1956 Olympic champion Tenley Albright, for whom the club's rink is named, and Nancy Kerrigan, a two-time Olympic medalist and club alum, were among those at the club seeking the comfort and solidarity that always helps us get through such trauma.
Both athletes, steely as competitors, were in tears thinking of the young lives they knew now cut short. They also knew this was not the first such loss in figure skating. In 1961, the entire U.S. team — 18 skaters plus 55 others traveling with them — were killed in a plane crash on their way to the world championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
"We’ve been through tragedies before — as Americans, as people — and we are strong. And I guess it’s how we respond to it," Kerrigan told reporters.
On the club's two practice rinks, young skaters were pushing through their own sorrow, working on their routines, gliding across the ice in silence. Because in the end, that's what we do. Amid the long tail of tragedy, we go on.
Columnist Michael Dobie's opinions are his own.