While we argue over the technicalities, what might have happened, and our annoyance over the politicization of this tragedy, all of these people (and more) were gone in an instant—their potential snuffed out and the lives of the loved ones they left behind altered forever. The death toll was 150, but surely hundreds, if not thousands of lives have been/will be affected by this:

Germanwings plane crash: Who were the victims?

There were victims from 18 countries on board, although most were Spanish or German. […]

• An Australian mother & son
• Sixteen schoolchildren
• Three generations of one Spanish family
• A woman and her seven-month old son
• A young man from the UK
• A husband and father of four from the UK
• Two opera singers
• A newlywed couple
• Two Iranian reporters
• Three U.S. citizens
• Two Colombians
• An Argentine couple
• An Israeli
• A man from Belgium
• Three Mexican citizens
• Two Japanese

And that’s just this one incident. If you think about how many others died violently yesterday, today, and those that will follow them in the future due to crime, wars, etc. It just… *sigh*

What are we doing??