But for the Grace of God . . . . .

The shocking news of this morning had not yet sunk in when I sent Facebook birthday wishes to Anne Martin.  It must have been a day or two after her birthday when I met her for the first time last year.  

That was on a flight from Paris to Dublin.  Anne was on her way home to Dublin and her family after completing a shift as an airline attendant.  She flies for a company that owns corporate jets. 

We had a great visit during the hour-plus flight which occurred shortly after our 10-hour flight from Seattle to Paris. 

Far from luxurious, that long flight meant sitting like sardines, trying to find comfortable positions while nodding off for short naps or watching movies as we passed over Greenland, the Atlantic and finally France. 

But we got there! 

On this morning, I am grateful that even though our experience over those many hours lacked the creature comforts we used to enjoy in the good ol' days of flying commercial flights, we arrived----stiff, sore, tired but alive. 

And, that March morning a year ago, after we arrived and boarded another flight, I had the opportunity to meet a lovely Irish lady who spends her career flying the world. 

After sending her birthday greetings this morning and noting that she was just a few days older than my son, I started reading news headlines and Tweets on Twitter more carefully.

Like any "human" who awakens this morning to discover that the German flight which crashed into the Alps a couple of days ago did so apparently at the hands of its co-pilot, I'm dismayed, more saddened and angry about the cruel and senseless loss of innocent lives that seems to happen with regularity in our world-----at the hands of others.

Shortly after zeroing in on several headlines and seeing the co-pilot's name disclosed in one tweet, I searched on Facebook to see if he had a page and picture.  

Turns out that apparently, someone who wished to celebrate his actions set up a Facebook page with a photo of a person who could be the co-pilot sitting with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.  

I'm not entirely sure that this was a fake page, but with my weak translation abilities, it seemed that the creator described him as a hero in a short phrase next to his name on the page. 

Soon new posts, lashing out at him and whoever set up the page kept appearing on the side very rapidly.  

In essence, for that few minutes, I was watching live responses to yet another horrific event where innocents paid the price for someone else's deranged, deviant or malevolently directed mental state.  

Who knows the motivation?

What we do know, however, is that the people on that plane died with lives filled with hope, joy, excitement and purpose.  

Now, like so many who have gone before them, their memories will live on as unfortunate victims of a mindset filled with hate, evil, revenge or some deviant motive and absolutely no regard for human life.

These souls suffered from the grave misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

It will be interesting to see how the facts filter out in this situation.  

I'm guessing, however, that before definite conclusions will be reached on the GermanWings disaster, our attention from this week's tragic loss will shift to yet another shocking example of hideous behavior which seems to be alive and well in this world.

Sad and disturbing times.