"The Strength of a Mother"

"The Strength of a Mother," in today's Washington Post, may be the most heart-wrenching newspaper story I've ever read. Told with compassion and love, it's a deeply affecting portrayal of a mother's years of crushing despair and grief after her 9-year-old is murdered.

Neely Tucker, who wrote the article, met Carol Smith, the mother, when he was investigating how parole officials had released the murder suspect just before he killed Smith's daughter. Tucker and Smith developed a friendship, and they married four years later. He decided to write down what happened after Erika was killed "to show the hold she retains on the living, the lasting nature of those bonds between mother and daughter."

He writes:

"I wish to make clear that I do not think that there are lessons to be taken away from the murder of a child. I do not think all things work together in a mystical plan for good. Some things in life are brutal, ugly and will never make sense.

"But Aeschylus, the ancient Greek playwright, held that there was suffering so great that, even in our sleep, it dripped upon the heart until "in our own despair, against our will," comes a terrible wisdom.

"That wisdom is perhaps the stubbornness of hope, the human resilience that lies beyond our understanding, that we commonly call love."

Beautiful. Read it all here.