 There are moments within the human adventure that one will not likely forget.
Tragedies such as the JFK assassination and 9/11 sit on one side of the scale; the exhilaration of the first moon landing sits on the other. The successful rescue of the 33 Chilean miners may not reach the invigoration of the moon landing, but was unquestionably a positive jolt that was shared globally.
When Luis Urzua emerged from the 28-inch-diameter hole that curved deep into the San Jose Mine, it officially marked the conclusion of what had been a 69-day improbable odyssey and the beginning of euphoria felt around the world.
This story runs counter to the perceptions most hold of mining accidents. Decades of tragic data have led many to prematurely pronounce a death sentence once the accident was made public.
Seventeen days had passed before there was any indication that the 33 men were still alive. Even that faint hope was dashed when we were told it would take roughly 60 days to reach them.
The best-case scenario had already taught us that whatever success could be realized from this unlikely venture must also be burdened with some heartbreak.
We dared not hope for all 33 to survive -- 20 survivors would have easily been granted miracle status. Frankly, if it would take 60 days to reach the trapped miners, hoping for a 60 percent survival rate bordered on outlandish.
Hope is a strange thing, whether rooted in religious or secular origins; it is a belief in a positive outcome that oftentimes transcend the facts available.
The facts on the ground said one thing, but the world, though somewhat covert in the initial stages, collectively hoped for something different.
At the moment the 33 were reached and my hope was allowed to openly flourish, it was tempered, however, by the 48 hours required to actually get them out. But the emergence of each miner prompted a repeat of global tears of joy -- allowing the world to vicariously participate in this euphoric moment.
These were tears of joy that could not be shed when 25 American miners were killed this April at Montcoal, W.Va. Nor could they be experienced in 2007, when a coal mine in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine collapsed after methane gas exploded deep underground killing more than 100 miners.
We're not used to having good news come as the final word in such disasters; it is usually death and a call for enhanced safety regulations for the miners. But an international coalition came together in an unprecedented manner so that this story could have a happy ending.
Let us hope that whatever enhanced safety regulations are realized in Chile, they will bleed into the fabric of U.S. mining and elsewhere.
There was a shift in my focus that pushed tax cuts, who controls Congress and undisclosed campaign contributions -- issues that have dominated the public conversation in the U.S. for the past several months -- to the back seat in importance.
The irony was not lost in that the desert, where the 33 were trapped 700 meters below the Earth's surface, was also a place for decades where workers were abused, safety was always in doubt, and in some cases, workers were murdered. But in a mere 69 days that same region had been permanently transformed into an oasis of possibility.
As Chilean President Sebastián Piñera spoke in the aftermath of having greeted all 33 miners, though my Spanish is limited I did not require a translator. I clung to the president's every word.
Though he spoke for several minutes I was able to reduce his comments to five words. In the spirit of Le Monde in the aftermath of the 9/11, I heard President Piñera simply say: "Today, we are all Chileans!"
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