My Best Friend Died On Pan Am Flight 103. I Should've Been On That Plane — And It Haunted Me For Decades.

The author and her best friend, Theo Cohen, in London in 1988. My friends began to rise off the page, lofted by memories from only hours ago: the smell of last night’s beer on Turhan’s breath, Luanne’s chipped pink nail polish on her fingernails clutching a plane ticket, Miriam’s high-pitched sneeze into a handkerchief, the way a strand of Theo’s long black hair caught briefly in my eyelashes as she left my arms to run and join the others in the cab. Courtesy of Annie Lareau *** After the bombing, the people of Lockerbie and Scottish law enforcement officials undertook the task of continuing to recover passengers’ bodies and collecting every item they could find strewn across and around the town. Though they were grieving the loss of 11 members of their community — and the unspeakable tragedy itself — so many of Lockerbie’s citizens selflessly gave their time and energy to help bring closure to people they would likely never meet. Courtesy of Annie Lareau In that moment in the gym, with Colin standing beside me outside its door, I felt a sense of peace that I hadn’t felt since before the bombing.