Miriam's Gift: A Mother's Blessing--Then and Now [Paperback]

As a co-worker of Miriam's father, I felt deep and helpless sympathy when he lost his only child in this horrible act of terrorism. In the days and weeks following Miriam's death, I often heard her described by those who knew her as extraordinary." Because I did not know her, I took this description with a grain of salt. After all, how extraordinary can a 20-year-old actually be? "Miriam's Gift" taught me just that!

Rosemary Mild, Miriam's mother, takes us on her journey to glean some understanding of her child's death--and life. And on that journey,Mild not only remembers the child she knew, she discovers the child she might never have known had Miriam lived. From letters shared by friends, from her journals, notes, and essays, we, with Mild, learn how often and how deeply Miriam touched the lives and hearts of others. A prolific and gifted writer, the person who was Miriam emerges from her written words, which are lovingly, tenderly, and powerfully woven with her mother's beautifully crafted account of her years with Miriam and the hell she experienced after learning that her child was aboard that doomed flight.

Mild takes us through the horrific moments, hours, days, and months following the disaster. Together we reach the place where we can share with her (and the other families) outrage at the unfeeling treatment of victims' families by Pan Am and our own State Department, and at the slipshod security employed by one of our nation's (then) largest airlines. We are astounded at the complexity of deception that kept Pan Am 103 departing on schedule when it should have been grounded after warnings that something was going to happen. All this is related not with the hysterical ax-grinding to which Mild and the others are certainly entitled, but with a slow unfolding that leaves the reader with disbelief and shame that such contempt for human feelings exists either in industry or our government. Triumphs in the face of such sorrow seem small by comparison to the horror, but triumphs there are, and by living the process of how the victims achieved them, we, the readers, are elated that something--that ANYTHING--positive may have risen from the wreckage of Pan Am 103 and the lives of those lost and left behind.

Mild's greatest triumph, however, is having done the seemingly impossible--she has brought Miriam back to life not only for those who knew and loved her, but for those who did not have that opportunity. From Mild's skilled hand, Miriam becomes a part of our lives, and from Miriam's articulate writings and conversations related by family and friends, she will remain so. Within this 20-year-old child lived an old soul--a soul filled with knowledge and love and wisdom. From this child we adults, who consider ourselves fairly knowledgeable about life, learn passion and compassion, action and spirit. Wise far beyond her years, Miriam has something to say to us all about living life to its fullest, for this she surely did. Talented, incredibly bright, caring, and sensitive to human suffering, and outraged at society's wrongdoings, which she saw so clearly and sought to improve, it is ironic that it was a vast collection of society's failures that led to her death.

But, thanks to Mild's courage and love for her daughter, Miriam lives on in the hearts and minds of countless numbers of people from widely disparate backgrounds. This beautifully tender, yet powerful work extends Miriam's gift far beyond her own expectations, which were enormous, to say the least! I am grateful that Rosemary Mild chose to share Miriam's gifts with the world. In so doing, this bright, talented, articulate, bouncy, curly-haired dynamo did not vanish in the darkness of that cold December sky. She lives on within--and for--all of us, continuing to share her gift that we may embrace life as she did-- wholeheartedly determined to make a difference.