Their children die of accidental injury, birth trauma, and genetic ailments. They don't shun modern medicine, but their hard farm life and insular society makes this a fact of life. They bury many infants and children. While they weren't prepared for this violence or the loss of so many at once -- and who could be? -- they are acquainted with the grief of early loss. The way to deal is already established. They follow their way and it comforts them.

What will be most difficult for the survivors will be going back to school. Not to the building itself, which the community has boarded up and will probably raze to avoid the shrine/tourist attraction it could become. Amish schools start the day with everyone standing at the front of the classroom to sing. Those who were present that day won't be able to do that again wherever they go to school without the memory of their classmates standing at the front of the classroom bound, with a different activity in store for them. The dead we can only mourn, and be glad their moment of terror, at least, is over, but the survivors' fates always haunt me.

The girls' parents have all said that the girls are better off dead than molested, a point of view that I can't agree with any more than you can forgive their murderer. I don't have to agree that sexual innocence is more important than life, and you don't have to forgive the madman who did this. That is their burden, their choice, and their way. I know you're a man of faith. You can pray for them. They'd appreciate that, and it would be a gift that will comfort you too.