Life as usual

Far far away, a plane based in a country we don't know was shot down over a country we've barely heard of.  So it doesn't matter, right?  It doesn't touch me.  The 300 who died were nameless, faceless. 

There have been flags flying in Melbourne for a week, announcing the 20th annual International AIDS Conference.  In Melbourne this weekend, the best and brightest researchers in the world were meeting to try to find a cure, to make sense of data, to help eradicate a devastating disease.

Of those 300 nameless victims, at least six were on their way to Melbourne to attend the AIDS conference.  Among them were some of the world's best hopes in this fight.  Why is that?  To get to an international conference in Australia, coming from Europe, you fly east, across Asia, in a major passenger plane for a major airline.

And now those flags, bright colors over Melbourne to announce a conference of hope, have become a symbol of inexplicable tragedy and loss. 

I don't sleep well.  The world hurts sometimes, more than it used to.  Recently, I have found that much of my hope is a banner over a city in which the best have been shot down.

I'm pulling down the flags.  I'm doing it carefully, taking my time.  But I'm folding them up and packing them away.  And as I fold and pack, feeling the stitches in the fabric, the crease of the seams, I am searching, earnestly searching, for a safe place to fly them again. 

[Edit:   Post originally said that one third of those on the plane were on their way to the conference.  Although this number was originally reported by certain news sources, the conference organizers themselves have reported a much smaller number, and this post has been changed to reflect that.]