A beautiful woman is gone. She has impacted hundreds, maybe thousands of lives in my small town over the years. Between the time when I had heard she was missing and the moment it was clear that she had died, I was playing with two year olds. Two of them have curly blond hair, and reminded me of the face I was holding fast in prayer. It was comforting to be with children who were oblivious to the pending loss, but rather reminded me to keep reading the picture book when I slumped into a daze. 

¨Tell it!¨

Singing time is usually at twenty past ten, but by five after the kids could wait no longer. They set up chairs and plunked in them. How could I refuse?

We lost ourselves in the shake of maracas, and the click of sticks as we sang songs we all knew by heart. Then we set the instruments down and I began one about a lamb. 

¨A man had a hundred sheep, but one of them was lost, so he left the ninety nine to look for his little lost lamb..."

I pictured the task force of police all pounding the paths searching for one precious woman. I recalled that the policeman directing traffic when I drove the twins to school was not the regular officer. He would have been calling a single name until he was hoarse. 

After pretzels and water we resumed our games. A girl found the bell on the desk usually used by the other preschool teacher to get the children's attention. She rang it over and over. Normally I would have scooped it up and put it on a high shelf, but I was too sad. I just let her ring it. Which she did. 

I thought about the woman who had found it too exhausting to ask for attention, too scary to beg for help. The curly head that felt too foggy to believe that she was loved fiercely. Cherished. Needed. 

I wanted to give that bell to this little girl to keep always, whose biggest problems now are a shortage of cookies, and an inability to reach the light switch. But if I put a bell on a string around her neck, around the necks of every darling child to ring when they are afraid or lonely, maybe we will never lose one of our own again.