The children who died in Texas this week belong to all of us and we are grieving for lost sons, daughters, grandsons, and granddaughters.

“…when your child dies, you feel everything you’d expect to feel, feelings so well documented by so many others that I won’t even bother to list them here, except to say that everything that’s written about mourning is all the same, and it’s all the same for a reason – because there is no real deviation from the text. Sometimes you feel more of one thing and less of another, and sometimes you feel you feel them out of order, and sometimes you feel them for a longer time or a shorter time. But the sensations are always the same.

But here’s what no one says – when it’s your child, a part of you, a very tiny but nonetheless unignorable part of you, also feels relief. Because finally, the moment you have been expecting, been dreading, been preparing yourself for since the day you became a parent has come.

Ah, you tell yourself, it’s arrived. Here it is.

And after that, you have nothing to fear again.”

Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

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” Death is never an end, but to Be Continued…”

Renee Chae, This Thing Called Life: Living Your Ultimate Truth.

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“I walked in the garden of life, caressing soft petals here and there. And lo! After a while they were no more, and my heart bled for each fragrant petal that fell. If every flower withers, never to return to its full blossom, then what good indeed is passing by in the garden of life? Herein lies my hope: that for every flower that withers, another one blooms, one that will remain forever fragrant and fresh, never ever to pass away…”

Jocelyn Soriano, In Your Hour of Grief: When Mourning the Death of a Loved One