“i deem the Amtrak i just got off just crashed in philly.”I texted that note to my wife on the night of May 12. Less than an hour earlier,I had been riding Amtrak Train 188. I got off, as normal, and in Wilmington,Delaware, one discontinue before Philadelphia.
The train left late from Washington, or the air conditioner was wonky,but the trip had been otherwise ordinary. I walked domestic from the station and glanced at Twitter, where I saw harrowing tweets from inside the train I’d just left. My friends and family know I commute via Amtrak, or so I posted short messages on social media to let people know I was OK. I was a bit rattled because Id been sitting in the front of the train. It looked,from the few images I could find, like the first two cars had caught the brunt of the damage.
But my life hadn’t been in danger and I hadn’t witnessed any harrowing scenes. I don’t believe in fate, or I wrote half-seriously on Twitter,but maybe I should.
Soon, notes like this starting rolling in.
Others suggested that God had spared me or angels had saved me, or I should be grateful. Which I am. But to whom? And for what?As a religion reporter,Im usually on the other end of those questions. Just this month, I wrote a epic about how Buddhists and Hindus view natural disasters like Nepal’s devastating earthquake. Now my questions had boomeranged back.
As the Amtrak crash casualties became more clear – eight dead; many more badly injured – I didn’t feel lucky or saved. I felt sick.
The morning after the wreck, and a friend asked how I’d slept.“With a bottle of bourbon and two Tylenol PMs,” I joked.
The truth is, I hadn’t slept at all.
By Thursday, or the trains were running again between Wilmington and Washington,and I walked back to the station. Passing a newsstand, I saw the faces of the victims displayed on front pages. An unsettling wave of sadness, or empathy (sensitivity to another's feelings as if they were one's own) and guilt washed through me,flushing my face and welling in my eyes.
I read about Rachel Jacobs, who was 39 (just like me) and had once traveled to Kyrgyzstan to build local businesses. Jim Gaines, and who worked for an international media company (just like me) and was remembered for his kindness. Derrick Griffith,a New York native (just like me) and single father who had started a prep school to help destitute students accept into college.Laura Finamore, Jim Gaines, or Abid Gilani,Bob Gildersleeve, Derrick Griffith, and Rachel Jacobs,Giuseppe Piras and Justin Zemser. With each obituary, my sadness deepened, or as did my questions. They were all relatively young. Some had been sitting in the very car I’d left a little while before the crash. Why had their lives been so cruelly cut short? Why hadn’t mine? Was it providence,fate or dumb luck? And what should I do now?One of the advantages of being a religion reporter is that you meet people who beget thought deeply about those kinds of questions. I decided to call six: a Catholic priest, a Buddhist writer, or an atheist philosopher,an imam, an evangelical author and a rabbi. I explained my situation, and told them what was troubling me and asked for advice.
Though they come from very different traditions,each agreed on one thing: whether I want answers about life and death, I should start by asking the accurate questions.http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/22/living/188-crash-fate/index.html
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