We are Marshall

Written in response to the movie "We are Marshall" in January 2011

Hopes, dreams, families, parents, kids, college students…gone. Screams and heart wrenching sobs shake the bodies of every survivor as tears flow unchecked down soot-covered cheeks. Flames engulf those who just hours ago were safe in their embrace. Minds are numbed by shock and unmentionable grief. Pain – waves of pain crush down on countless people. The impact of the crash resounds through the city and is still felt months later – like a fault line whose irreparable damage splits the earth in two. The next morning all that pain is reduced to a single headline in black and white: “MARSHALL TEAM DIES IN PLANE CRASH!!” Newscasters announce the tragedy in crisp, sterile tones. Across the country people acknowledge the news with sorrowful eyes and a sympathetic heart, but that is the end. People move on with their lives…except in one city called Huntington in West Virginia. There time stood still as people try to reason past the grief that threatened to paralyze their minds and senses, perhaps wishing that it would. And no one could share in that pain; no one could join in that mourning. How do you recover from such a monumental tragedy? What do you do to rise from those ashes? As word passed that the plane had crashed, the town found the strength to run to the site, hoping all the way to find that it was all a horrible mistake. As they approached and felt the heat emanating from the plane, their worst nightmares were confirmed. The Marshall play book was the only evidence that could be recovered, but it was enough. How do you turn around and have to spread that news? How do you try to empathize with something so horrific? New words would have to be created to adequately describe the utter agony felt on that day. And in the end, we realize that words will never suffice. There is a groaning that carries an emotion too deep for words. You can offer your condolences, but how hollow do they sound next to the resounding emptiness that is such tremendous sorrow? Yet when there are no words to describe the pain, silent companions can help you carry on. Sometimes that is all that we can do, be there – silent and waiting, praying that someday we will be able to carry on.