A single bagpipe cut through the idyllic fall stillness before the slow procession trickled out of the Hall of Language’s double doors, the two rows of Remembrance and Lockerbie scholars emerging in succession, one after the other.

Each carried a single, long-stemmed white rose as they made their way toward a crowd of about 150 people that formed a semicircle around the Wall of Remembrance for the Rose Laying Ceremony on Friday.

Bells tolled at 2:03 p.m., marking the precise time on Dec. 21, 1988, that, while suspended over Lockerbie, Scotland, terrorists detonated a bomb aboard Pan Am Flight 103, killing 270 people, including 35 SU students returning from studying abroad in London and Florence.

Much has changed in the nearly 25 years since the act of terrorism unleashed unfathomable grief on this campus tucked in the quiet of Upstate New York.

SU as an institution has changed — in the years since, Remembrance Scholarships have been established and awarded annually to 35 seniors and two Lockerbie Scholarships allowing students from Lockerbie to study at SU for a year.

Life beyond the SU community has changed — airline safety standards have become more uniform, a shift longtime Remembrance Scholarship selection committee member Judy O’Rourke attributes, in part, to the advocacy of victims’ families who pushed for more stringent regulation.

And for O’Rourke, the nature of grief itself has also changed.

“It’s never over. But it changes. In some ways, it’s less sharp,” she said. “When grief is raw, it’s a sharp pain. It can be overwhelming and as time passes, that sharpness, that overwhelming feeling, it’s not as great. It’s not as often. It’s not as intense. But you still have that sorrow and that pain.”

Amid all that’s altered, what’s remained in the ensuing years is the need to remember, to commemorate those who perished that December day. Friday’s Rose Laying Ceremony was one of the culminating Remembrance Week events, a weeklong fixture at SU since the mid-1990s.

Mimicking classes of scholars past, the 2013-14 Remembrance and Lockerbie scholars individually approached a microphone situated by the Wall of Remembrance, offering brief, yet telling snapshots about the students whose lives were snuffed in December 1988.

The scholars told the approximately 150-person crowd of the young people who were just beginning to map their beginnings. Eric Coker “relished a good political debate.” Suzanne Miazga once said “she wanted to live life and not just exist.” Wendy Lincoln “radiated beauty, laughter and love.”

The recollections went on, each scholar offering a small slice into the lives of one of the 35 students killed. Each ended their time at the microphone by vowing to “act forward” in the students’ memory. After speaking, each student stepped around the Wall of Remembrance, placing their individual white rose atop the monument.

Amanda Kullman, a 2013-14 Remembrance Scholar closed the ceremony, remarking to the tightly packed crowd, “Your presence has shown that these students will not be forgotten so long as this university exists.”

That presence and community borne after the tragedy, has been a solace for Melanie Daniels, 27, whose father, William, was aboard Pan Am Flight 103. After the ceremony, Melanie Daniels said that in the years since, she’s come to depend on the ties forged between the families of Pan Am 103’s victims, and the community fostered out of the tragedy.

Her father wasn’t aboard the flight as part of SU’s group, but in forming those ties growing up, Melanie Daniels said she feels as if she knows each of the 35 students individually.

“This is how I get to learn about my dad,” Melanie Daniels said. “It makes me feel like when it happened, he wasn’t alone.”

Published on October 11, 2013 at 10:56 pm

Contact Debbie: dbtruong@syr.edu | @debbietruong