since my fellow passengers must already have known from takeoff that they had ended up next to a young man in tears. My throat ached, and I had no control, everything flowed through me, I was wide open, but not to the outside world, I could hardly see it anymore, but to the inside world, where emotions had taken over. The only thing I could do to salvage the last scraps of dignity was to stop myself from making noise. Not a sob, not a sigh, not a moan, not a groan. Just tears in full flow, and a face distorted into a grimace every time the thought that Dad was dead reached a new climax.