Nows and Forevers

It will be 34 years next week that a bomb brought down PanAm Flight 103, headed from London to New York a few days before Christmas on Dec. 21, 1988. It has been more than a news story or something that happened because it killed a young woman, Patricia Coyle, from my hometown, and 269 other people.

She was 20 years old, a few months younger than me.

I have marked that date ever since, and yearned for justice for those we lost. Today, there’s word that a man who was linked to the attack is in custody. It’s been a long and often discouraging hunt for Justice in this case. But I am glad that even after more than three decades, authorities in the United States and in Scotland haven’t forgotten Patricia and the others, on the plane and on the ground, who lost their lives that night.