in the line of duty

reading the sad blog entries here and there, i see that there is a heavy sense of mourning for the deaths of the Challenger crew, much more heavy-hearted than my own reaction. i suppose i have rather a different outlook on death?

these were not senseless deaths. news of senseless death sends me into despair, for instance, in last week's la times, there was an in depth feature on the ongoing tragedy of black-on-black murders taking place on the streets of los angeles. it was difficult to make myself read the whole thing, the interviews with the parents who'd had to identify their children's bodies, who had to bury their unrealized hopes and dreams and go on living knowing there was very little hope that the killers would be caught. the sense of hopelessness i felt reading about whole communities dealing with such unthinkable loss on such a regular basis ... knowing this makes something inside me just break.

but when i heard of the space shuttle tragedy, one of my very first thoughts was that there are far worse things than dying doing something meaningful, in spite of the danger. the loss of these seven brilliant and couragous individuals is terrible, but there is nothing hopeless in this, on the contrary, it speaks to me of the very best of the human spirit. and this news did not make anything inside me want to break.

it takes an amazing person to pursue a career in which death is always a possible outome. these are people who had a vision, who pursued their life's passions with amazing sucess. they were the best of the best, they loved their work, and they knew they were making a difference in the world. how many of us spend our lives serving a greater purpose, knowing that we are making significant contributions, accepting that part of this involves putting our lives on the line? the exploration of space is the most idealistic of pursuits, it represents hope for a benevolent future based on the expansion of our reach in the universe. the men and women involved are committed to this, to the extent that they accept the grave dangers involved. they did not let the fear of death interfere with their mission.

life is consummated in death, it becomes finite and complete in that defining moment: a unit, a whole, a lifetime, for whatever that's worth when it happens. and when life is lost in the course of fulfilling its chosen purpose, that offers us the opportunity to set aside the worst of the tragedy and take solace in the knowledge that that life was not stolen in some inexplicable random twist of fate. there is peace to be found in accepting that the life taken had been willingly offered, in order to accomplish something bigger than itself.

people die in the line of duty every day. how that happens is less important than the fact it happened in the course of doing something important, something they believed was worth the risk of their lives. to me it seems that there should be an element of celebration in the sadness that follows, the celebration of a life well lived.