Sustainable spirit
What can you say when disaster strikes?
Our country is still reeling from Sept. 11 — and probably will be staggering from that blow for a long time.
Then we turn on the TV Saturday morning, see the wall-to-wall news coverage on every channel, and that dread comes over us. Is it another Sept. 11?
No, it's another Challenger.
Who would have thought that something so similar would take place 17 years later?
Words seem so inadequate when dealing with tragedy. What can one writer say that hasn't already been written countless other times in papers across the country?
But it still bears hearing again: We will go on.
Most people probably wouldn't feel too generous toward NASA right now if it had been one of their relatives who had died on the Columbia Saturday morning.
But in reality, the wives and mothers and children of these astronauts don't feel that way.
Here's part of a statement released by the families:
"Although we grieve deeply, as do the families of Apollo I and Challenger before us, the bold exploration of space must go on. Once the root cause of this tragedy is found and corrected, the legacy of Columbia must carry on for the benefit of our children and yours."
Personally, I doubt that I'd be magnanimous enough to make such a statement.
But they made it, and they meant it. They — and their loved ones who died — are what's great about America.
— JENNIFER WILSON
