A World in Pictures-- Kayla Beebout

August 27, 2006 was a date that changed everything for many families in our community.  That morning, as many of those families, including mine, sat in Sunday morning church services, it was announced that Comair Flight 5191 had crashed shortly after takeoff.  This news was shocking enough on its own, but the news that was to come would be even more so.  For my family, it started when we got home from church.  There were three voicemails on the telephone, which was odd.  All three simply said who was calling and to call them back.  As my mom wrote down the names of the people who had called, she realized there was one thing, one person, that all of them had in common: Pat Smith.  She turned to my dad.  "Pat was on that plane.”

Even as they realized this and confirmed the news, they realized that all over Lexington people were getting the same phone calls, about 48 other people.  All 47 of the passengers on the flight had been killed, as had two of the three crewmembers. 

Just weeks before, our family had been sitting with Pat and his wife at the birthday party of a mutual friend.  My parents had talked about how lucky Pat’s grandkids were to have such amazing, fun grandparents.  But his loss did not simply rock our community.  He had been headed to New Orleans, to help rebuild after Hurricane Katrina with Habitat for Humanity.  He was a board member of the organization, and had touched many lives through it. 

I am sure that all of the lives lost that day are sorely missed, and I know that all of them still had lives ahead of them, things to see and to do and experience.  Tragedies like this are not something that we should simply forget as soon as something more shocking makes the news.  This picture shows something that impacted an entire city.  This picture shows something that in a perfect world would never have happened.  And this picture, and every other like it, reminds us that we need to live each and every day to its fullest, like it could be the last we have.