With a great aching emptiness,
with a sense of tremendous loss.
The Belgian Club of Florida and all its friends to all our friends in Belgium and Holland.
Nobody knows when death strikes... Just like here on this innocent, wonderful vacation trip to Switzerland...A group full of lively happy young and older kids, school friends... the best friends you can ever have... traveling home from an amazing school trip to Switzerland , going back home to Belgium to see mom , dad , brothers and sisters, all the families, friends telling them all about this wonderful trip they had in the mountains of Switzerland.
Some of them will never again go home to be with Mom and Dad, family and friends....
It's with deep pain and sorrow in my heart that I write this letter to you all but I feel I have to do it... just because also here in Florida it was the only topic we talked about last few days...
In name of all Belgians in Florida, I would like to send our deepest respect and feeling of sorrow to the parents, families , friends and everybody involved in this terrible accident in Switzerland.
May God be with you in this darkest moment of your life.
We can only hope that you will find the strength and warmth and love of all people helping you going through this very sad time.
Be strong.
They will never be forgotten.
All our love will always be with you
Marc De Vlieger
president of the Belgian Club of Florida
Keep on reading the latest update here
Something I found for you to read.
Death is an overwhelming tragedy. It is so different from other calamities of life. When other misfortunes strike, there is hope that things will get better. If poverty comes, one works harder, and hopes for better times. When sickness occurs, there is hope that health will soon return. But death is the supreme tragedy. It seems so hopeless, so very final, the end of everything. The loved one is gone beyond recall, beyond our help, beyond our reach. The tender ties of a whole lifetime are abruptly broken. The family unit, so tightly knit, is rudely shattered.
A wife loses her husband, or a husband loses his wife, in death. It is as painful as though a part of one’s body was torn away; which it has been, in a sense. Did not God say, "they shall be one flesh"? (Genesis 2:24) Or, a father and mother lose their child, the one upon whom they have lavished their love and for whom they had such great plans and high hopes. And children lose their parents, upon whom they have so long depended for love and counsel. In every event of death, the survivors are left sad and lonely, with a great aching emptiness, with a sense of tremendous loss.
It is hardest on those who are left behind. The dead are at rest. They are at peace. They are no longer troubled by the evil and wicked things of this world. In the Bible, Job describes the condition of death thus: "There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest." (Job 3:17) But those who remain are not at rest. Their hearts are torn by grief because of their loss. Every scene and event of their daily lives haunt them with memories of their departed loved one. And they often tend to reproach themselves, that perhaps they had not been so kind, considerate and loving as they should have been, that somehow it might have been because of their fault or neglect that the person died. Such thoughts torment them and greatly add to their grief.
What consolation can we give to those who are thus left behind? What comfort can we impart which will stop their weeping and dry their tears? Human philosophies and reasonings will not do. They are void and empty. Traditional and sectarian views of the hereafter are most unsatisfactory and painful. They hold no real comfort. But in the Bible, the word of God, there is great consolation, and wonderful comfort and hope. There is balm for the soul. There is healing for broken hearts. Every perplexing question concerning life and death and the hereafter is fully and lovingly answered. Some of these questions are: Why do people die? Why does a loving, all-powerful God permit death which brings such terrible sorrow? Why did he take my beloved away from me? What did he do wrong, to deserve death? What did I do wrong? Where are the dead? Are they happy? Are they suffering? Will I ever see my loved one again?
