The Butterfly Effect
A Memoir of Tragic Near Misses
There is a specific kind of silence that follows a tragedy, a natural disaster, or a terror attack, when you instantly recognize the location on the news. It is a chilling, physical heavy weight of awareness that the ground currently being cordoned off by yellow police tape is the exact same place where, only weeks prior, you were laughing, enjoying a moment or posing for a photograph.
I feel like my life has become a map of these “after-images.” For years, I have travelled through iconic, postcard worthy spaces, then soon after a catastrophic event occurs. In chaos theory, the Butterfly Effect suggests that a small change in initial conditions can lead to vast differences in a later state. If I had stayed a week longer, or if I had applied for leave at a slightly different time, taken a different flight, my timeline would have collided with a much darker reality. I have become infatuated with those preliminary conditions: the mundane moments of peace that exist days or weeks before the natural disaster or the terrorist activity. Sometimes I cannot even appreciate a moment of wonder at a beautiful place because I flash forward to what might happen here in the future.
I present with trepidation some (not all) of my evidence of my times and events:
The Broad Arrow Café (Tasmania, 1996)
In January 1996, I stood at the Port Arthur historic site on the gorgeous Tasman Peninsula, southeast of Hobart, Tasmania. I remember the cool, quiet stillness of that afternoon and my eighteen-month-old son squirming in my arms, trying to break free of me to run in the grass. We posed for a photo next to a massive, ancient oak tree near the Broad Arrow Café.
Only a few months later, I was picking up the developed photographs from that trip when I passed a newsstand. Martin Bryant’s haunted face stared back at me. On April 28, that site became the setting for the Port Arthur Massacre, then the world’s deadliest shooting by a lone gunman. 35 people were killed and 23 wounded. The scale was so profound it forced Australia to implement some of the strictest gun control laws in the world within weeks.
The photo in that news story that still haunts me most is Nanette Mikac. After the initial gunfire, she and her daughters, Alannah (6) and Madeline (3), fled 600 meters down the main exit road. They were seeking cover behind that same tree when they were cornered by the mad man. Nanette pleaded for her children’s lives, but they were killed right there by the tree. This same oak tree I had used as a backdrop for a family memory became a witness to an unthinkable end. I stared in disbelief and horror at the photograph of me smiling with my squirming baby son under that beautiful tree.
The Reem Island Ghost (Abu Dhabi, 2014)
I lived in the Emirates for many years and grew accustomed to a sense of absolute, almost surreal safety. But on December 1, 2014, the “Safe City” of Abu Dhabi was shattered. In a restroom at the Boutik Mall on Reem Island—a place we visited for groceries and coffee weekly —an American teacher named Ibolya Ryan was stabbed to death.
The attacker, dressed in a full niqab, became known as the “Reem Island Ghost.” It was an extremely rare and terrifying act of terrorism in the United Arab Emirates that triggered a massive, high-speed investigation. For years I had visited that particular coffee precinct and used that very bathroom before our weekly grocery shops; the butterfly wings of chance had punctured the one place we felt untouchable and safe.
The Engagement and the 11th (Paris, 2015)
We were engaged in Paris in December 2014. We stayed in the 11th Arrondissement, a vibrant district synonymous with the city’s heart. We walked those boulevards as newlyweds-to-be, completely enamored with the life around us. We chose the 11th as “our special place” laughing together like we were in our twenties.
Within days of our return, on January 7, 2015, the Charlie Hebdo offices in the 11th were attacked, leaving 12 dead. The violence didn’t stop there. By November of that same year, the 11th was the epicenter of coordinated attacks at the Bataclan and nearby restaurants that killed 130 people. We were the ghosts who had occupied those tables, the bustling market, those cobbled streets, just a heartbeat before terror struck.
The Gorkha Earthquake (Nepal, 2015)
By Easter 2015, we were seeking peace in the mountains of Nepal. We spent our break exploring the ancient temples and the Durbar Squares of Kathmandu. We flew around and felt we were on the top of the world.
On April 25, the 7.8 magnitude Gorkha Earthquake struck. Nearly 9,000 people were killed. The tremors didn’t just shake the earth; they leveled the history we had just touched. The squares where we had stood were suddenly rubble. Our hotel was flattened. The Butterfly Effect isn’t always human; sometimes the wings flap deep beneath the crust of the earth. We watched in disbelief and dread the destruction on our beautiful streets of Kathmandu.
The Bridge (London, 2017)
In February 2017, John took a photo of me on Westminster Bridge. I can still feel the chilly wind off the Thames on my face and hear the rousing chime of Big Ben. I am beaming in the photo, a traveler in a city she adores.
A few weeks later, on March 22, a vehicle tore through that exact pedestrian path, terrorizing and killing 6 people and injuring 50. In the chaos, a young woman named Andreea Cristea was pushed off the bridge into the freezing River Thames below. She did not survive. The very spot where I had stood for my obligatory tourist shot where the air felt fresh and exciting and the city felt strong and permanent was suddenly a place of carnage and terror.
The Pyramid and the Strip (Las Vegas, 2017)
In September 2017, on way to the Grand Canyon we stopped in Las Vegas. We stayed at the Luxor - the great Egyptian pyramid hotel which is directly opposite the Mandalay Bay. We lived the typical Vegas experience; we even crossed the street to have dinner inside the Mandalay Bay, admiring the view of the Strip.
A few weeks later, on October 1, a gunman opened fire from the 32nd floor of that hotel. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, with 60 people killed. From the pyramid where we had slept, the view of the muzzle flashes, the people fleeing, would have been hauntingly clear. I felt sick for months.
The Midtown Sidewalk (New York, 2024)
I forgot about the Butterfly effect for a while as life got in the way until, the most recent flap of the wings happened this past November. We spent Thanksgiving in Midtown Manhattan, staying at a hotel right on the parade route. On that Thursday morning, we stood on the sidewalk huddled together in the rain under an umbrella outside the New York Hilton Midtown, part of the festive crowd watching the giant balloons navigate the canyon of 6th Avenue.
Exactly one week later, at 8:00 a.m. on December 4, that same patch of concrete where we stood became a crime scene. A Health CEO was shot in broad daylight by Luigi on the very spot where we had stood to cheer. Luigi had walked those streets and cased that space while we were there. A week’s difference - a tiny shift in the calendar, is all that separated a bucket list moment from a headline that stopped NYC in its tracks.
The Pattern of the Blur
This is the rhythm of the Butterfly Effect in my life: a series of near misses that leave me wondering about the nature of timing. We are all moving through spaces that will one day be history, or tragedy, or both. We exist in the vibrant “before,” oblivious to the fact that the air around us is already beginning to move.
Most of the time, we are lucky enough to be the ones who leave the room just before the moment turns dark. We are the fortunate ones, left only with the “after-images” and the chilling realization of how thin the line truly is.
The Analytical Conflict
Despite my background in human error within safety-critical industries, I have this private, inner conflict of wanting to mitigate this personal “butterfly effect” and somehow lessen the devastating impact of these tragic events. Even though the analytical part of my brain knows that is ridiculous and unreasonable, I now wave a little magic wish in my mind when I am in a special place and hope that it stays protected from any future gloom and doom.