One hundred and fifty people died in an air crash this morning in one of the most scenic parts of the earth, the Swiss Alps. I wonder what happened. I wonder how the ‘karma’ of so many people unknown to each other can be so strongly linked. It is intriguing how various destinies can be so closely intertwined, the passengers and their loved ones.

“”Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” – Chief Seattle, 1854

Each of those people would have had a story. Just like the rest of us. We all have our narratives about our lives, each one completely unique and distinct from any other.

I can’t help but think of those left behind. This must be living hell for them. Once again I quote O’Rourke:

“The first systematic survey of grief, I read, was conducted by Erich Lindemann. Having studied 101 people, many of them related to the victims of the Cocoanut Grove fire of 1942, he defined grief as “sensations of somatic distress occurring in waves lasting from twenty minutes to an hour at a time, a feeling of tightness in the throat, choking with shortness of breath, need for sighing, and an empty feeling in the abdomen, lack of muscular power, and an intensive subjective distress described as tension or mental pain.”

Grief is a physical experience in the short and the long term. In short bursts there is a physical sensation of pain and hollowness in the chest which is sometimes incapacitating. Every now and then it feels like I am drowning. At other times it is sheer inexplicable exhaustion. At least half my hair have fallen out. On the whole I feel really old.

I find my thoughts and feelings are with all those who lost their lives and those who love them who are just beginning the nightmarish journey that is grief.