We live a whole continent away from the forests of Oregon, but back when I was a Californian, I spent some summers camping there and walking through the dense, deep, quiet woods.

And so when I heard the news stories about James Kim, the young father who was missing there after he’d gone to search for help to save his family, I could almost picture the scene.

For the last few weeks, the story of Kim’s setting off after eight hopeless days of waiting for help that did not come has captured the hearts and attention of everyone I know. Who among us can’t relate to the need to do something when hope is dwindling, and your babies are looking to you for help? It is a specter that haunts all our dreams, made especially more horrifying when we learned that if he had just been able to wait there just a little bit longer, the rescue helicopters would have found him when they found his wife and daughters.

Yesterday, crusing through the blogosphere, I came across the most beautiful elegy I’ve seen, just heartbreaking in its eloquence.

Reading it makes you hold your children a little tighter, kiss your spouse a little longer…and that’s a wonderful thing at this crazy time of the year.