They Say Their Hearts Go Out To The Families of The Victims, But Do They Have Enough Heart Left?

When I catch the bus, I leave the house at around six. I get to Abby's building at about six-oh-five. She gets down stairs between six-ten and six-fifteen. When I left, I heard helicopters. Two of them. Low. Very, very close, circling, from the time I left to the time we were halfway to the bus stop. As I was sitting, Abby's dad came downstairs and he said he would check the radio and call Abby to tell her if he found anything out. So halfway to the bus stop - a third helicopter had shown up and landed - Abby's dad calls. He tells her there was a terrible, terrible wreck at an intersection about half a mile - or less - from where I live. I could see the lights as I walked up to my bus. The whole northbound side of the road was blocked at that intersection.

As I boarded the bus, which then proceeded through it's planned route, I was thinking about the accident. I was thinking about the people involved. There is no doubt in my mind that at least one person died in - what I have heard to be, but am not sure was -that three-car pile-up. Maybe I'm being morbid, but the odds are staggering.
Then today, in TV Production, our class was shown something made about four years ago. It was about a student at our school who had died in a car wreck. It was very moving, and I felt like crying.
These two things made me think. Outside of the family and friends, who really remembers these people? Or, at least, who takes a moment to remember who they might have been? It doesn't matter if you don't know them. They lost their life. True, they may have been a total asshole, but don't you think that still affects the people that care about them? The fact that they're gone, never to return?
And eventually, everyone just forgets. Everyone but the family and friends. And true, who can remember all the victims of these accidents and what not that happen every five seconds? But we have to realize some things.
Not only is life so incredibly short, but it's so incredibly valuable. Maybe not to ourselves, at some points, when we're not feeling so hot, but to others. We have to remember that those people matter. There are other people that matter, and they deserve to be remembered.
So every time you hear about an accident, a murder, a loss of life... take a moment.
Think.
Remember who they might have been.
Because they matter.

~J*~