Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis [Eternal rest give them, O Lord: and let perpetual light shine upon them].

We commend to thy fatherly goodness all those who are any ways afflicted, or distressed, in mind, body, or estate.

Just as pieces stitched together in a quilt warm our bodies, scrapbooks bind together memories to warm our hearts.

Perhaps they are not the stars, but rather openings in Heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.

When the dead is at rest, let his remembrance rest; and be comforted for him, when his spirit is departed from him.

God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

Those who have lost an infant are never, as it were, without an infant child. Their other children grow into manhood and womanhood, and suffer all the changes of mortality; but this one alone is rendered an immortal child; for death has arrested it with its kindly harshness, and blessed it into an eternal image of youth and innocence.

How many others suffered in silence, too ashamed and too afraid to speak about their pain? The world wouldn't let them grieve for children they had aborted. How could they when the rhetoric said there was no child? How does one grieve what doesn't exist? No one wanted to admit the truth.

We grieve for those we've lost, but it's the living that cause us the most pain....

Good friend, we all hurt for her. But her suffering will bring about God's purpose, and you will see it.

So many times you've given me comfort and forgetfulness.

Paul heard his mother's grief and felt the emptiness within himself. I have no grief , he thought. Why? Why? He felt the inability to grieve as a terrible flaw.