Big Orange Backpack

Today I was sitting in the cafeteria, and honestly feeling very uneasy about it. I was very aware that four years ago today nine students, like myself, were murdered by a bomb in that same room. I ate fairly quickly, and uneasily, even though I was really looking forward to that meal for two days. This guy came up to me as I was finishing and asked if I went to Rutgers (I have my Rutgers Hillel shirt on), and I was really frustrated at first, because I really felt so uncomfortable being there I just wanted to leave, and I didn’t want to be kept there. And he asked, do you know what happened here four years ago today? And I said, the bombing, yeah I know, I’ve been thinking about it the whole time I was sitting here. He asked how much Hebrew University had told us about what had happened, and I told him it was never mentioned, and he looked sad. And I realised he wasn’t just some jerk invading my privacy and private space, that actually something was honestly bothering him. So I gave him an inquisitive look, and he told me that his girlfriend, Marla, was one of the people killed, that he planned on marrying her. I immediately teared up, realising the gravity of what he was saying… I was near tears for our entire conversation, which lasted almost an hour. We talked about mundane and not mundane things, about the bombing, how it was carried out, how he brought her back on his flight home with her in steerage, the fight with Hebrew University to get a memorial with names and a plaque in English, how awful Hebrew University was with us and the Lebanese situation, his job and what he’s doing in Israel now, how they met… It made me think of a lot of things, of what it would be like to lose Greg, especially in the violent and unexpected way in which he lost his girlfriend Marla, what that entire experience must have been like… And for as much loss as I’ve experienced, understanding that kind of loss is beyond my realm of comprehension. He went into Frank Sinatra cafeteria the day after it happened, with smoke and blood still everywhere, and looked at the place in which his girlfriend was blown up. It reminded me of all of my D-day anniversaries (I’ve had three for mommy so far, and the one for daddy is rolling around the bend). I really empathised with him sitting there, feeling so lost and alone, feeling like nobody there understood or felt his pain. The whole world is moving around you conducting, to take a que from the Motster himself, “business as usual”, however you are in so much pain and grief you almost can’t breathe.. I really hope that our paths cross again.