The announcement from KGO, San Francisco’s popular AM station, made its way through the steamy thunder of my morning shower. The volume of the broadcast increased with my focused listening. Leaning, limp against the tile walls, tears mingled with water dripping from my hair. I turned the water off to hear the full report.

The night before, I heard it was missing. Egypt Air flight 990 had been located off the coast of Massachusetts, eerily reminding me of another fatal crash in the same seas not long ago. That time, we had lost our American prince and princesses.

Pulling on a terry robe, I dropped into my bedroom chair without stopping to dry. I gazed at the redwoods in the serene morning mists of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Tears poured again this time, and again against the backdrop of a perfect world. Two hundred people. More. Gone. For what purpose? I asked God. Not in defiance. I’ve long come to realize that God doesn’t cause disasters. Yet I know miracles can prevent them. And I know miracles can result from them. I’ve long come to know that miracles are our right. So my question: Why wasn’t a miracle given these people on this flight? I waited for the answer, my ears clogging under pressure of the grief.

His answer came immediately. He used the radio and His voice sounded female, though I can’t be sure. The name I cannot pronounce. She was introduced as the Egyptian ambassador to the United States, residing in San Francisco. She spoke of a community that I’d never realized existed -- an Egyptian community of 25,000 people in the San Francisco Bay Area. And she spoke of the entire community -- Egyptians, Asians, Pacific Islanders -- Americans of all colors and backgrounds and religions -- a world community. She spoke of love and empathy, understanding and the mission of families. In one word, she spoke of joining. I could not resist! I joined in prayer with her immediately, and I joined with my family of human beings in that instant.

I am eternally grateful to the people of Flight 990 for carrying out a sacred mission. For all of us who have the courage to accept, they offer us a gift. The moment before I had accepted, they had indeed died, and died for nothing. But when we accept, these people are not gone at all, but live; they live in us, in the love extended and in the joining brought forth by each of us for all of us.

(c) November 1999 Glenna Heller