Stranded

We just saw the documentary “Stranded” quite a few years after reading “Alive” and seeing its namesake movie as well as, more recently, reading “Miracle in the Andes.” I must say that after doing all that, I have garnered a good appreciation for that incredible adventure of both hope and survival, and I have found in it an endless source of inspiration. As we’re now in the midst of material “doom and gloom,” with the stock market tanking and the economy on the skids, it’s very uplifting to remind ourselves that as long as our heart still beats inside our chest, we’re okay. This reminds me also of a comment made by Mychel Blanc, a former schoolmate and now an artist who lives in France, near Geneva: “As long as they [the teachers] have not hung us, we’re alright…” This statement may sound simplistically naïve but it has helped me to carry on more often than not, along with the mental picture of that plane and its survivors stranded in a remote snowfield of the high Andes…