Real Families

It is rare to have a work of fiction link with real-time poignancy to real families in your vicinity. A recent main-stage theater production on our university campus brought back memories from 20 years ago with surprising force for our family and even more powerfully for another family nearby.

In December 1988, a plane crashed into the Scottish village of Lockerbie, killing all 259 people on board and another 11 on the ground. Pan Am flight 103 was headed from London to New York, and circumstances pointed strongly to suspicion of a terrorist attack with a bomb stowed among the luggage on board.

The family of one of the actual victims lives not far from Harrisonburg, Va., and lent some retrieved clothing fragments from their daughter/sister for display during the play at Eastern Mennonite University (written by Deborah Brevoort, directed by Heidi Winters Vogel). They joined the audience one evening and paid tribute to the power of its message.

The play revolves around the efforts of the local Lockerbie women who witnessed the crash and then sought permission to wash the bloodied, shredded clothing of the victims and return them to families in a gesture of remembrance.

Cast along lines of a classic Greek drama, the staged version achieves its power by a single-minded devotion to the idea that “hatred shall not have the last word in Lockerbie.” By showing love to those who suffered, the women of Lockerbie seek a path beyond the tragedy with a healing gesture. Their hope is frustrated by logistic and bureaucratic nightmares, personified by an emissary of the U.S. diplomatic corps. Yet the women persist, and through their efforts a troubled American couple, torn by grief and despair after losing their son in the crash, find a measure of reconciliation and readiness to move on with their lives.

Watching the talented cast perform, I was moved more than I anticipated as our own college-aged daughter played the role of the traumatized, grieving mother. What is it like to lose a child, even one who is grown and mostly gone from home? How does one seek resolution when the remains are nowhere to be found and the case against the probable perpetrators is drawn out and endlessly inconclusive?

The terrors of our world afford so little shelter, such shabby securities behind the layers of protective measures that encroach incessantly on our liberties, offering empty assurances that life as usual can go on.

We rarely know how close we come to the disasters that strike our world numb. But any mention of Lockerbie brings back a flood of memories for me as well. Our family was also traveling from Europe to New York that day in December 1988. In fact, we were hoping to return in time for family Christmas celebrations in Pennsylvania. Yet we somehow ended up stuck in the Belgrade airport delayed for 10 hours of engine repairs.

I tried everything I knew to get us from the Yugoslav airlines onto another flight instead. For most of those 10 hours, I coaxed and cajoled, argued and begged. I spent all my available energy trying to convince the ground crew that we needed to make the switch and meet our ride in New York. “Just get us to Frankfurt or London, and I’ll pay the extra charge to get on Pan Am,” I pleaded. Four days before Christmas, I didn’t want to get stranded in Belgrade, with two small boys, a babe in arms and the dashed hopes of a whole family with reunions on our horizon.

Dad is supposed to be able to fix almost anything. Coping with setbacks, striving against adversity and dealing with cross-cultural complexities is part of the job. On occasion, when I manage to muddle through a difficult challenge, someone in the family circle remembers with approving tones the fine example of “Fantastic Mr. Fox” from one of our favorite Roald Dahl books.

That December day would have remained etched as one of the least fantastic displays of my powers of persuasion. I have rarely felt so confounded, so stymied despite all my best efforts. Ten hours of trying to get my family of five onto a flight with Pan Am brought no success. And then, those clock-stopping words right after we finally made it to New York on our original Yugoslav Air flight: “Did you hear what happened with Pan Am today?”

I have never forgotten the flood of grief and relief, the sheer gratitude to recognize the mercy of not getting what I had wanted so ardently that day. My attempts at persuasion have been tempered ever since with the awareness that my knowledge is incomplete. Ten hours of frustration melted in a moment. I cannot fathom the immense loss for the real families that suffered in that devastating attack, but I can almost imagine losing my own. With Job we are humbled and confounded in confessing: The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Gerald Shenk teaches at Eastern Mennonite Seminary in Harrisonburg, Va., and works with an Abrahamic initiative for faith-centered peacebuilders at Eastern Mennonite University.