Not Alone

We received a very beautiful letter in the mail today from someone we do not know. We are linked, unfortunately, by the unfathomably torturous, and soul-shredding loss of a child. An explosion-in-common has devastated our realities and the few scattered remnants of a life now long gone are all that remain.  It is difficult to even recognize what these pieces were before... Before happiness ended.

For me there's no real way to put any of the pieces back together to create any semblance of the whole, but there is an exhausted thread holding up what remains of -- I can't find the word(s) -- the remains of me is all I really know to say right now, and, well, this string was made a little stronger today by the beautifully sincere words of a stranger.  

Thank you Kim for sharing your words with Erin and me.  A very thoughtful and kind message.  Thank you.

I wish that our stories did not have to be told.