Where some people will sit and look out the window while their computer is chugging away on some major crunch, or sit and watch TV after a day's work, I surf the internet.

No, "surf" isn't the word. I shoot through it like a marlin. I can read fast. Very fast. My computer is designed for heavy graphics, and has processing power up the wazoo. My connection costs me 70 bucks a month, and is worth every cent. I sometimes carry ten to fifteen IE windows at once. Links, links to links, branches in all directions. When I'm directing this process, it is a superb search system. However. when I'm playing, I click here, there, almost unconsiously, as the side of my brain that has no idea what the left side does and what the right side does runs things.

I see a lot of interesting things, a lot of scary things, and sometimes, as you shoot along, you smack straight into someone's pain.

Some of it is part of an inevitable loss.

Some is bad news, followed quickly by good news.

Some of it is not inevitable, or quickly resolved, which is in many ways worse. And these are often kids. A small child's parents have a web page. Their child is very sick, they have to tell someone, somewhere, and every step is there to see.

You wonder. Will you check in again tomorrow? It's almost impossible not to want to know what happens. But if you go away, and never come back, it's like the Little Prince and his flower, somewhere off in the unknown. As long as you don't know, you can imagine the best. But you can also imagine the worst.

A blogger linked to little Candace last winter. I followed her into the abyss.

And, thank God, out of it again.

There was a little boy last year, who went through cancer, a marrow transplant from his brother, and recovered. I don't have the link any more, and don't want to find it.

The courage of the children is inspiring. The victories can make your whole day. But the others...

A page where I arrived late, now just a simple memorial. Don't have that link, either.

A page where the loss is described, as calmly as possible, by parents who are too numb to be anything but calm.

Some pages are written by the children themselves. I'm sick, with cancer, but look! I did this picture!

Some of these pages have more links, to more children. I don't deliberately follow the links very often. If they're still just little underlined names and URLs, it's easy to brush them off. The sheep hasn't eaten the flower. If you go there, there's the eyes, and the tubes. And the brave smile. Now, it isn't as easy any more.

I run into pages like this once, maybe twice times a month. It would be horribly easy to seek them out. Compassion? Or being unable to look away from a car accident? This way does not lie madness, but something that isn't good.

But once in a while, I run into someone, and watch, and hope for the best.

Pray for me, they ask. Pray for my child. There are damned few atheists in these terrible foxholes.