Sometimes a tragedy is so raw that all you can do is ache. Demanding an explanation, railing against the gods, looking for some kind of justice — it all seems trite when the worst of things happen. And so you just ache for those who suffer.

One of my work colleagues lost his two sons — his only children — last week in a terrible accident on a Virginia interstate highway. I’ve only known him for a few months, but that’s usually all it takes to get a measure of a man, and this colleague is one of the warmest and most fundamentally decent persons I’ve ever known. He’s been a journalist in Washington for a long time, and there are many who know him better than me, but I ache for him just the same.

The funeral for his sons was today. There had to have been more than a thousand people at the church. The choir closed the service with the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love,” and it was transcendent, beautiful, mournful, hopeful. And everyone ached together, not just for the loss of two brilliant young men, but for my colleague and his wife. For what we feel is nothing compared to how they must feel, and any words we can offer will probably miss the mark. But we can ache for them, and in some small way, perhaps this can ease their pain a little.