EDITORIAL — Life is never the same again

When a small plane carrying New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and his flight instructor slammed into a high-rise apartment building in Manhattan, Americans lost not just a well-known sporting figure and an innocent life.

What Americans lost more profoundly was their innocence, yet all over again. The American Dream, throbbing and pulsating quite ironically right there in the very heart of the Big Apple, gave in to another sweaty nightmare.

One can almost visualize New Yorkers, in the first confusing minutes of the tragedy, being stabbed right through the very core of their beings, in all likelihood nearly wetting their pants that this was 9/11 all over again.

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 that brought down the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, there is probably no instance of a commercial jet screaming over New York that will not, for an instant, bring some sense of trepidation and uneasy memories.

Maybe a small plane, such as the four-seater Cirrus SR20 that crashed into the 50-story building in Manhattan's posh upper East Side, will not and did not elicit the same kind of dread and evoke the same kind of pained recall as it flew overhead, probably innocuously.

But when it crashed into a ball of flame, the thick black smoke wafting over the New York skyline, it is not hard to imagine the feeling. Indeed, before things got clarified and terrorism was ruled out, rumors flew thick and fast that another one was coming.

Fighter jets were immediately scrambled and ordered to fly shotgun not just over the city of New York but over other large American cities as well that were likely targets for a terrorist attack. Even the rest of the world stopped briefly to watch.

Some may call this a manifestation of heightened security preparedness. The truth of the matter is, this was a painful reopening of an old wound, the pricking of a scar that has not yet fully settled into forgetful healing. Life in America, and the world, is never the same again.