Regarding "It's hard to imagine a man taking the job [of librarian] especially now that the profession has devolved into a world of women".

Seven years ago, I interviewed for a library job at an elementary school. The female principal's first words were "We don't get many men applying for this... We do have some custodial positions available."

This also in a semi-rural district where the average number of boys with a single mother and an absentee father is well over half the male student population and adult males (including the custodians) per elementary school is less than 20% of the staff.

You make me proud to have once been a librarian, Gerard. Exquisite post.

32 years ago our son was killed in a mountaineering accident. Her message is the message I wrote 32 years ago. Only a bereaved parent knows the pain that the death of a child brings.

You keep getting up in the morning and putting one foot in front of the other. You do it because you know your child would want it that way. As time passes (years, not months), the pain subsides but never really disappears. When you can you reach out to others who have lost a child to say, "I am so sorry for your loss." Words are so inadequate to heal a loss so large, and when all is said and done, there is nothing but love, tincture of time, and Grace that raises one from the depths of despair.

Each loss of our fine young men and women from our military is always a reminder for me - someone's heart is breaking today.

That poor woman. Pray God she found an answering voice across the internet. When we lost our own third baby who died in utero, we sat in a dingy church basement with other grieving parents, angry and miserable and so aware of those words of Auden's. I remember hearing Christmas carols and "Unto us, a child is born" in a cheesily decorated Xmas hospital ultrasound room right after hearing that our baby was dead. The whole world barrels on oblivious. Their ordinary pleasures and activity salt in the wound.

We tend to go about our days focused on ourselves, and on the small handful of people important to us. Even when our jobs require us to come in contact with other people, we rarely give thought to them beyond the momentary business at hand. I believe that sometimes we stumble across situations like you described--painful, private moments inadvertently exposed to us--because we need to recognize the humanity of other people, and to care about their struggles. The alternative is indifference, and we've far too much of that already.

Only by suffering can we know what joy is.

Years ago I stopped at the scene of a wreck. The father had taken his adult daughter for a Spring ride on his big Honda Goldwing motorcycle. The rear tire blew out at 60mph. As I kneeled in her rapidly congealing blood and her dad gave her mouth to mouth while I did chest compressions, I was struck by the fact that the sun continued to shine brightly and the birds sang on. The world is merciless and unconcerned in human tragedy. Human compassion is a gift that we can give each other and it is, I am faithful, a reflection of the mercy of God.

Years ago I stopped at the scene of a wreck. The father had taken his adult daughter for a Spring ride on his big Honda Goldwing motorcycle. The rear tire blew out at 60mph. As I kneeled in her rapidly congealing blood and her dad gave her mouth to mouth while I did chest compressions, I was struck by the fact that the sun continued to shine brightly and the birds sang on. The world is merciless and unconcerned in human tragedy. Human compassion is a gift that we can give each other and it is, I am faithful, a reflection of the mercy of God.

It is amazing all the little things we notice in a moment frozen in time. Everything is captured and compressed, every feeling, every noise, everything.

My son-in-law carries with him that moment when his sister died in a car accident.

He was 11, his older sister Emily was 13, and Sarah, who died, was 16.

When he describes what happened, he freezes everything into that moment of impact. His retelling the story is so well-done that he seems to bring into it all the things that were actually there with him.

It is an artful ability to tell a story that makes a person feel as though he were part of it as it's being told.

I can still smell the coppery smell of blood and see the anguish in the father's eyes as I asked him if she was pregnant(the impact and resultant immediate internal bleeding made her appear so). The beautiful day and birdsong seemed so cruelly incongruous, the world should have stopped for a moment.

And to think, some things are worse than death. Sometimes, carrying on makes us wish for it. In those moments, we don't consider the toll it would take on those we would leave behind.

I'll never forget the song that woke me on the morning of my mother's funeral. I'll also never forget holding my brand new daughter in my arms, looking into her perfect little face, planning her perfect future and trying to pretend the news reports on 9/11/01 were not happening.

The most profound expression of loss I've heard from a mother came from one whose adult child had been killed in cold blood during a robbery. The mother described the agony of seeing her child's name, a name for which she had searched her heart and soul as a new mother, carved in a gravestone. They say parents shouldn't outlive their children. After hearing that mother's poignant expression, I agree.

We always refer to "the birds chirping" and "the sun shining", but if you think about the hardships of a wild bird's life and the hellacious process required to produce the life-giving warmth and light on our tiny rock, it's a miracle that we even classify as "living", let alone that we are able to appreciate it enough to grieve it's loss in such profound ways and finally express it in words. Being human does have its downside. And there are moments when I envy the birds who aren't burdened with sentiments such as grief.

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