In the Dark

Yesterday at 11 a.m. I was at the Friday farmer's market when everyone stopped and stood perfectly still. I couldn't figure out what everyone was looking at. Was there some demonstration I was missing? I couldn't see anything going on. Then the church bells tolled and tolled. As I rode my bike home, I noticed the flag at the fire station was at half mast.

I learned only later it was a moment of silence to pay tribute to the 28 people killed in a bus crash this week in Switzerland. Of the dead, 22 were 11 and 12 year old children from Belgium returning from a ski vacation.

Their parents were flown in military planes to Switzerland to identify their children. Unimaginable really. How many times have our own children boarded a bus for a school trip? Returning home safe and sound.

At 11 a.m. today, the two C130 planes landed in Brussels with all of them returning home. And a moment of silence was observed across the country. I read that trains even stopped in their tracks.

Apparently the coach the children were riding in slammed head-on into a tunnel wall. Some say the design of the tunnel may be to blame, some say human error, but it may never be known for certain. Speed and alcohol have been ruled out. The driver did not survive.

I wish I had known about that moment of silence, but that's how it is sometimes for me here. I'm not always aware of what's going on around me like I might be in the States. In the dark.

There's tragedy every day, I know. I didn't know about that moment of silence, but I know it now.