The planes have gotten louder. We are so much more aware of them now.

I swear, the planes going over our house have gotten louder. And so has the realization that life is short.

Yet so many people have been on hand, coming together to soften the blow of this horrible tragedy. Professionals of all sorts have formed a united front filled with respect and expertise, working to take the hurt away as much as humanly possible.

Living in the flight path has never been an issue, until now. Until Flight 3407 fell from the sky.

But now, the planes have gotten louder. Our heartbeats have gotten louder, along with the realization that life is short, really not fair and oh so fragile. That now screams to us, from somewhere down deep inside. There is such

sadness for each and every life lost, and for the victims’ loved ones, who are left to gather themselves, and the countless good memories they have from better days.

Flight 3407. Just a number. 3,407. A number of what? How many times a day we think of the people who boarded that fateful flight?

3,407 times we pray daily, for the families and friends they left behind? 3,407 wonderful people, angels on earth, who came and helped, working their magic, to make the pain less on those who loved a passenger, or two, or three, on that flight? 3,407 times we wish that plane hadn’t flown that night? 3,407 times we’ve thought, “There but for the grace of God go I”?

It is just a number. A number we’ve heard 3,407 times over the past few weeks, and wish we had never heard, because it is now filled with such utter sadness.

The air around Clarence Center is filled with sadness. You can feel it. What seems like such tragic senselessness is hard for adults to comprehend. And trying to put it into words that young children can understand makes us aware of how little we really know.

Ours is a big world. A big world with big, unanswered questions. And I appreciate the fact that there are so many ways to look at things, so many religions, so many ideas. Some people of faith believe that when your number is up, it’s up. Perhaps this is true. And when it is not up, you get to live another day. Hopefully, to make life better for yourself, or for someone else, who also has a number that isn’t up yet.

I keep going back in my mind to the eulogy given by the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, CIA agent-turned- pastor, at his son Alex’s funeral in Boston. His son had been killed when his car went off the road and into the water.

His father, tired of hearing well-meaning friends say, “It is the will of God,” responded with this: “My own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex die. That when the waves closed over the sinking car, God’s heart was the first of all of our hearts to break.”

And so, I say today that I feel solace in the fact that I believe that God’s heart was the first to break on Feb. 12, as Flight 3407 came to a crashing halt. And many hearts have been breaking ever since. So many more than 3,407.

Indeed, the planes have gotten louder.

They are drowned out only by the sound of compassion, love and respect. And by the collective hearts of millions of people — many more than just 3,407 — praying that all of those who lost someone dear find peace to sustain them.