I have something that I remind my staff every time a very big story erupts somewhere around the globe.
“Don’t worry,” I tell them. “Somehow, some way it will work its way back here to Delco.”
That is why whenever there is a tragic story like a place crash or earthquake, we scour the list of victims for a Delco connection.
That’s what I was doing on Sept. 12, 2001, looking over the list of passengers on United Flight 175 released by the airline in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
One name leaped off the page at me.
Michael Horrocks, one of the co-pilots. Home town? Glen Mills, Pa., right here in our back yard.
Incredibly, and with no less heartache, it has happened again.
Today, our lead story, splashed all across Page One, tells the story of Carmen and Antoinette Lobis. The Concord Township couple are holding a picture of their 6-year-old grandson, Benjamin Wheeler.
He was one of the 20 children gunned down when a 200-year-old madman invaded the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., last Friday.
There are no words to describe what the Lobis’ extended family has been going through the past few days.
It is my sincere hope that we did not add to their anguish by interviewing them and telling their story. I think they speak eloquently of what we lost with Benjamin’s absence.
It is the kind of haunting void that 19 other families also are trying desperately to fill.
My fear is that they will not be able to do it.
Just as I, a person whose job is to work with words, struggles to find any that can explain this.
The truth is there are no words. Only heartache.
Some days I hate this job.
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