The death in the Big Dig is personal to every one of us

Milena Del Valle was one.

She was all.

It was her.

It could have been you. Or yours.

Or mine.

Or theirs.

A friend. A sister. A daughter. A wife.

When the 38-year-old newlywed from Jamaica Plain was crushed last week under the staggering weight of the largest, most infamous public works project in the country, her death made manifest the jitters behind years of infighting and innuendo, hopes and dreams, criminal investigations and cost overruns.

Concrete fell, someone died.

There it is, months after the project was declared complete.

Milena Del Valle died. How completely awful.

And it could have been you.

Or yours. Or mine.

Gov. Mitt Romney, in grand presidential-hopeful fashion, a lick of boyishly-styled hair kissing his forehead, leveraged the moments immediately following to more strongly demand ouster of Massachusetts Transportation Authority Chairman Matthew Amorello. (It took this, governor, to take a stronger stand?) Christy Mihos, an independent candidate for governor and former member of the Turnpike Authority Board, said (oh, so helpfully) that he'd never take his family into the tunnel. Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly started unfurling yellow crime scene tape and firing off subpoenas.

Everyone jumped once our collective breath-holding exploded.

Well, here's my message to all these big shots: My daughter drives that tunnel in the course of her work. You'd damn well better be certain it's safe before she has to go back.

And if there's anyone out there in Big Dig archives who's been holding their tongue on what seemed to be unspeakable acts, it's time to pucker up and whistle.

Meanwhile, whispers turned to shouts on weblogs as `` I told you so's'' from a skittish public -- asked to accept on faith the integrity of the Central Artery/Tunnel Project despite concerns -- gave vent to what many have feared.

Is it safe? Is it not?

Was the collapse a fluke or a harbinger?

Where are the assurances?

Days after Ms. Del Valle's death inspectors had already found 60 more problem areas in the eastbound lanes of the connector, which links the Massachusetts Turnpike with the Ted Williams Tunnel. Crews were still checking the westbound lanes.

We're asked to trust. But then, the Big Dig was forecast to cost $2.5 billion. It's hit six times that. So we've already been taken for a ride. Why not another?

Milena Del Valle was a newlywed traveling with her husband to pick up relatives at the airport. My deepest sympathies go out to her husband and family because of who they are and also because they are really not strangers at all.

They are you and they are me.

Even if you live in Attleboro. Or Plainville. Or Norfolk.

You pay taxes. You may actually expect the powers-that-be will have a scintilla of courage -- somewhere, sometime -- to take the high road even if it means action as drastic as shutting down and inconveniencing one of the busiest urban areas in the universe for months. Whatever it takes.

You may commute to Boston. You may pick up loved ones at the airport.

Milena Del Valle was every one of us who depends, in good faith, on others to work in ways that merit our trust. Do the people who have their hands, dirty or clean, in the Big Dig, deserve yours? Informal polls in the wake of the incident suggest that the public will be detouring for a long time.

Mr. Amorello, you're hot-to-trot on staying on as boss? Then it's you who'd better ensure that when this project reopens it's safe.

I've got a stake in that, Matt.

And it's not a stake in your political future or paycheck.

I've got a far bigger investment than all that petty trinketry.

I'm someone's mother.