Girls, Interrupted

Dear You,

Perhaps you, too, saw the photographs of the five girls spread across the newspaper this morning, just under the flag and above that dreadful headline. And if so, perhaps you, too, stopped whatever else was going on in your otherwise ordinary day to read about who, what, where, when, how . . . and why.

Five 17- and 18-year-old girls, just graduated from a nearby high school and chums all their lives were driving to a lakeside home for what promised to be a day of fun and friendship -- perhaps one of several they had planned for the summer before they headed in different directions to college and the adult lives that were to follow. They died quickly in that fiery crash.

It is the job of the newspaper to tell us the facts, but it's really our job to find possible meaning in events. I have no idea how many books I have read -- hundreds? I studied philosophy and psychology and literature, and I taught thousands of teenagers during my 34 years in classrooms. I attend church regularly. And I really don't know how best to answer any questions about the Meaning of Life.

So I think about the other four girls in the story -- the friends in the following car who were also headed for that day of enjoyment but who had to witness those awful moments. Doubtless they are occupied with the shock of feelings. You know: the ones that we have felt ourselves or perhaps just read about. But maybe in the coming days they will understand better than ever the miracle of waking up, the importance of being truly present every day, the need to take little for granted.

I wonder if they will understand what I do not . . . just why Life must teach us this harshly.