I am within the year of my father's death, and I am living on the cusp of sadness. Carefully, I skirt the rim of this deep pool where I immersed during the week of Shiva, when his loss was everything, was the only reality. Yet that time has passed. I am a mother, a wife. I belong to the living.

This morning I read an article by Sherri Mandell, whose son was murdered in a terrorist act. She is an intense flame, burning in the darkness of her never diminishing loss. She inspires me, her light so tangible I can hold it in my hands, and can use it as a grappling rope to pull me up.

This is the way of our world, a world defined by darkness and lightHad her son lived, would I know her name? Would I recognize her bright light? She would be a candle by day, indistinguishable from the surrounding. G‑d has chosen to recognize her, has set her light against darkness.

I rage. I accept. This is the way of our world, a world defined by darkness and light. In the darkness of my father's death, the light of his love comes to me so clearly. Why did I not see it against the backdrop of ordinary conservation?

My father suffered, lived years defined by pain and dependency. In death, he is free of pain. He walks, a whole man with two legs, traveling a road defined by eternity. Yet his death leaves me cold and alone, shivering without the mantle of his love.

Who will believe in me? Who will encourage me with unceasing optimism?

I falter, unsteady, my body a burden to itself. Is this darkness? Why then is the past illuminated so clearly, a father who loved with "Ahavah Yiterah," an immeasurable addition to love?

Fury breaks over me for our losses, all our losses. I cry out. Our cup is full, overflowing with the loss of high school students, killed as they learned, their books stained with blood. Surely no light can pierce this darkness, the darkness of many, the weight of all our combined losses.

We are in the three weeks commemorating the destruction of the Holy Temple. My personal mourning mingles with the mourning of centuries, with the loss of our Temple, a physical house in which to receive the presence of G‑d. Grief layers upon grief, an endless tower of loss spiraling into the sky.

But the children are not resigned to mourningBut the children are not resigned to mourning. My daughter speaks to G‑d in the night. She tells Him it is enough. It is time. Time to rebuild. To bring back those we have lost. She does not want her Mommy to be sad anymore.

In the morning, she comes to me. To her, time has no meaning; a week and a year are equal measures of eternity. She has spoken, she reassures me. He has heard.

I will be comforted among the mourners.