Annie Lareau, whose best friend Theo Cohen was on the plane, recounts the evening of the bombing of Pan Am 103 in 1988. She was an SU student in London who knew many on the plane, and her account is raw, sincere, and more relevant than anything I could write:
I scanned the list. My friends began to rise off the page, lofted by memories from only hours ago: the smell of last night’s beer on Turhan’s breath, Luanne’s chipped pink nail polish on her fingernails clutching a plane ticket, Miriam’s high-pitched sneeze into a handkerchief, the way a strand of Theo’s long black hair caught briefly in my eyelashes as she left my arms to run and join the others in the cab. Turhan Ergin. Luanne Rogers. Nicole Boulanger, Miriam Wolfe, Wendy Lincoln, Daniel Rosenthal, Theodora Cohen. Theo — my best friend.
I concentrated and then began placing check marks where their grades should be.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead …
Meanwhile, 300 miles away, the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, was burning.
Her eventual connections to the people of Lockerbie and others grieving the loss of so many that dark Wednesday evening helped her move toward healing.
