To my suffering friend...

I feel your pain alongside my own. We suffer for different reasons, but we suffer. I can't say exactly why, and I won't render up the stock answers. They are not enough to staunch the pain raging through your blood, or mine, anyway. For the moment, there is but one answer. To weep with those who weep, mourn with those who mourn. So I weep. For you. For me.

As much as it feels the farthest moment away, I know one thing -- in days to come, at a moment when we least expect it, we will laugh again, and life will flood back in.