I'm Nora McNerney, and this is terrible thanks for asking.

When we're suffering, when we're sitting amidst the rubble of our own broken lives, our ruined plans,

our rudely interrupted plot.

Sometimes the only thing we can see is our own experience.

The jagged shards of our own broken heart.

The feeling of a cry stuck in our throat.

The pressure of grief expanding like a balloon in our chest.

Suffering is lonely like that.

Even when we're surrounded by people who love us,

the interior details of any loss are specific to us,

specific to what came before,

to what we'd hoped for in the future. But if we look up, refocus,

strain our eyes in the dark. Sometimes there is a small, nearly imperceptible point of light,

a message from a fellow traveler on this weary road trying to make sure we know we aren't alone.

That our singular experience intersects with another singular experience.

That all of the things we are sure have set us apart from the world are really things that weave us all together.

That connect us in ways that are nearly

impossible to see until someone throws on a light. But it doesn't feel like that sometimes.

Most of the time, it feels like our losses are as unique as our fingerprint, something nobody

else could ever understand.

This is a story like that.

It's the story of two young girls, Malie and Missy, two girls who felt like so many of us

...