Lockerbie bomber's release felt in Maryland
News today that Scottish officials had released the Lockerbie bomber from prison -- so the terminally ill man can return to his home -- will reverberate in Maryland. Among the 270 people who died in the bombing was 20-year-old Miriam Wolfe, a Severna Park resident who was returning to Syracuse University from a semester abroad. Her mother, Rosemary Mild, wrote a book, Miriam's Gift. based on her only child's diaries and journals.
As Baltimore Sun columnist Susan Reimer wrote in 1999 when the book was published: "Over time, horror was replaced by a bottomless sense of loss, the wearying knowledge that grief would be with her as far into her own future as she could see. Then came a sense of urgency. Rosemary Mild feared that the world would forget her daughter in a way that would be a second death. She feared that Miriam's memory would grow dim in the hearts of those she touched -- and there were many. And she feared that those who had not known her would now never know her. ...
"More than a family memento, more than an expression of a mother's grief, it is an expression of the unbounded optimism of a young girl ready to step onto the world's stage. It is Miriam's gift to the reader.
" 'The sky was bluer today, the sun was yellower today,' reads one of her journal entries just days before her death. 'And the whole of the earth seemed to be rejoicing in its own perfection.' "
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, who had served eight years of a life sentence in the 1988 bombing over Lockerbie, returned to his family in Libya. His release is sure to deepen the wounds felt by relatives of Miriam Wolfe -- and the many others lost on Pan Am Flight 103. It was a wrong-headed decision by Scottish authorities. And though it may have eased al-Megrahi's pain, it will bring much more sadness to other families around the world.
Comments
Even though he is dying,he should not be trusted and he should still be monitored.
Posted by: Lisa | August 22, 2009 9:53 PM
Forgiveness- a la the Bible- is the hardest thing; I've read of some family members who can forgive- others...never!
Myself a student of Martin Luther King and the Sermon on the Mount- I can see what the Scots did. Was this guy the only perpertrator, after all?
As I remember it, the Lockerbie bombing was in part a response to the US shoot down of a passenger plane over the gulf. But US war crimes go unexplored and unmentioned.
There are so many complexities and shades of gray that are not covered....
The civilian deaths caused by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan will cause us enemies for years to come- just as Israel's actions create problems for that state. The cycle of violence is watered by those seeking revenge- and I am not seeking revenge on them.
The US military, our nuclear policy trundles along regardless of dems or republs in power. And we have thousands of nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert.
Where are the great diplomats of non-violence- the truly creative thinkers- like Gandhi? What brings sadness to families around the world is the perpetuation of the cycle of violence.
Posted by: david eberhardt | August 24, 2009 11:06 AM