In the last couple of years I have had UConn women's basketball fans tell me that it is a tragedy that:
Elena Delle Donne opted to withdraw from UConn summer school and matriculate at Delaware rather than be a member of UConn's women's basketball team
UConn and Tennessee do not play each other in the regular season
Caroline Doty's promising freshman season ended when she tore her anterior cruciate ligament
Kelsey Bone will enroll at a school other than UConn.

To me, there is nothing tragic about any of those circumstances. Certainly Doty suffering yet another tear of her ACL is very sad and unfortunate. However, when I think of a tragedy, I think of Continental Flight 3407 which crashed into a house about five miles short of the Buffalo airport runway killing all 49 people on board and one person on the ground.

Few things in this world cause me to be more reflective than a plane crash. Perhaps it is because I fly often (I boarded 12 flights between Jan. 5 and Feb. 8) and somewhere subconsciously I know that on any flight, true tragedy could strike without warning. But more likely it is because I know all too well the emotional scars that families and friends of the victims of Flight 3407 will have to deal with for the rest of their lives. My parents died on a crash of Delta Flight 923 back in 1973. It wasn't even supposed to be their flight but with their original flight was cancelled, the decision was made to make an unscheduled stop in Manchester, N.H. and take them to Boston's Logan Airport. A total of 89 people including New Hampshire's Attorney General died on the flight. Just as newspaper and television reports did back in 1973, names of the "prominent" victims are starting to emerge from the most recent airline tragedy. For me, every victim is "prominent." They are prominent to their mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, co-workers and neighbors, husbands and wives.

The 44 passengers boarded that flight yesterday for different reasons, most were returning home, I would guess. I read of one victim flying in for a reunion of women's hockey players, there were bandmates who played for Chuck Mangione and some were likely going there on business. I had to fight back tears when I read of the widow from Stamford who lost her husband on 9/11. She was on that flight on Thursday and that just doesn't seem fair to me that one family should have to endure two such tragedies. It reminded me of a co-worker who had both his father and father in law die a week apart.

Had the passengers clicked another button on a computer screen perhaps they would have been on a different flight on a different airline and been welcomed home by their loved ones. Maybe they would have complained about having to pay $15 to check bags or terrible traffic getting to the airport or long security lines like each and every one of us have done. But circumstances out of their control conspired to bring a premature end to their lives. That is truly a tragedy.

I wrote this blog not to bring attention to my circumstances or ask for any sympathy. I have made peace with what happened and outside of refusing to board a Delta flight out of respect to my parents' memory, I step into an airplane without any feelings of doom or gloom and do not feel as if the world wronged me or my family. I do get a little perturbed when Southwest Airline flight attendants make jokes about water landings and any potential mishaps but I'm pretty sure I am justified in being annoyed by their making light of a subject that is not humorous in any way in my opinion.

I'd like to say that I know exactly what the victims of Flight 3407 are going through. I do not. My sisters and brother all dealt with the same tragic loss of our parents in completely different ways. Each person who had a loved one on doomed flight 3407 will be impacted in their own unique way.

My heart goes out to the victims and those whose lives will forever be changed because of Thursday's unfortunate chain of events. I am sure that if UConn reaches the Final Four, I will be a tad bit melancholy when I board my flight for St. Louis. Back in 2001, when I took my first flight following 9/11 I couldn't help but think about all those people who lost their lives and what it must have been like making their way to their seats and waiting for their plane to take off. I feel certain many of those same emotions will return in a couple of months.

If my circumstances have taught me anything it is that I realize that you can never know what life has in store for you. My mother used to joke when people asked her why she would not quite smoking that "I could walk across the street and be hit by a bus." In a way that is exactly what happened to her. However, if one person who reads this takes the time to realize what a true tragedy is and how fleeting life can be, it will be an entry well worth writing. If nothing else, maybe I will never get another e-mail saying how "tragic" it is that a 19 or 20 year old basketball prodigy tore her ACL. But in the big scheme of things, I will not consider receiving such an e-mail as a tragedy. I have a harrowing understanding of the true meaning of what a tragedy is. Unfortunately, so do those who had loved ones on Flight 3407.