Kids need to see that Jesus is the best thing that ever happened to us. And they need to know it can happen to them.

But pain may be a gift to us. Remember, after all, that pain is one of the ways we register in memory the things that vanish, that are taken away. We fix them in our minds forever by yearning, by pain, by crying out. Pain, the pain that seems unbearable at the time, is memory's first imprinting step, the cornerstone of the temple we erect inside us in memory of the dead. Pain is part of memory, and memory is a God-given gift.

I felt the kind of desperation, I think, that cancels the possibility of empathy...that makes you unkind.

Kids need to see that Jesus is the best thing that ever happened to us. And they need to know it can happen to them.

Loss brings pain. Yes. But pain triggers memory. And memory is a kind of new birth, within each of us. And it is that new birth after long pain, that resurrection - in memory - that, to our surprise, perhaps, comforts us.

It seems we need someone to know us as we are - with all we have done - and forgive us. We need to tell. We need to be whole in someone's sight: Know this about me, and yet love me. Please.

There is something truly restorative, finally comforting, in coming to the end of an illusion - a false hope.