Deaths cloud brightest days - Catastrophe in California

A TRAGEDY during the brightest days of the year, one involving young people at one of the brightest moments in their too-short lives can seem to cut more deeply than others.

There seems a special poignancy, a challenging pointlessness, about summer deaths, especially premature ones, especially as nature pushes towards the bounty of the harvest season. And though there can never be a hierarchy of loss or pain Tuesday morning’s catastrophe in California, when six Irish students enjoying a rite-of-passage summer died when a balcony collapsed during a 21st birthday party is a chilling reminder of how very cruel fate can be.

That others were critically injured and remain in danger adds to that feeling of shock and horror, one possibly amplified by misplaced regret and a feeling of powerlessness felt by the familes of the dead. The transatlantic path is well travelled. Every summer bright, optimistic and adventurous young people, probably some of the best we have, go to work in America and come home all the wiser, all the more rounded. This autumn at least six of those who left a few short weeks ago will not return to Ireland.

Fortunately very few of us have to endure the death of a child and the turmoil endured by the students’ families can hardly be imagined. However, it may be some small comfort for them to know that they are in the thoughts of nearly everyone on this island this bright but terribly sad morning.