The large pink, purple trunks, decorated with flowers and ladybugs, lie on the ground, now caked in mud, their owners now gone. They are orphaned, like the little t-shirts with Camp Mystic written on them, tangled in branches torn from the ground and swept away by the floodwaters of the Guadalupe River in Texas, carried thousands of miles along with everything else in its path. Including those 27 souls, including girls aged seven to 10 and their counselors, who were sleeping in their bunk beds at a Christian girls' summer camp on the night of July 4th. The day before, parents had dropped them off, packing their trunks with sunscreen so they would not get sunburned, hats, spare shoes, pajamas and, for the youngest, a photo of mom and dad to soothe homesickness.

No one would have expected that three months’ worth of rain would fall in one night. No little girl lying down that evening would have expected that the memory of her last ‘I love you’ now carries unspeakable pain. No counselor could have anticipated spending that night writing the names of each girl entrusted to them on their skin, to make it easier to recognize them if they were dragged away.

But it happened. And these images, these stories, now fill my Instagram feed: The New York Times, the Washington Post are covering it. I read about the two little sisters who were found holding hands, clutching a rosary – aged 11 and 13. I see videos of them playing capture the flag the day before. And I imagine their mothers, before that day, busy like I am now, preparing bags for my daughters' mountain vacation. Happy, like I am, because their girls would enjoy the sun, the sky, nature, and friendship. Worried, like I am, that everything goes well, and no one gets hurt. But confident that they would be fine.

When I see those images from Texas, I cannot hold back my tears. Even though it happened thousands of miles away. Even though I do not know those families. I turn off my phone because those stories hurt too much. It may be because my daughters are girls and the same age as those children. Maybe because it seems too unfair. Those parents, after all, had made a kind of pact, “Dear Nature, I entrust you my daughter, show her how beautiful the world is.” And Nature, a traitor, showed her anything but: crystal-clear waters turned into black, destructive waves.

At night, I put my two youngest daughters to bed. But the usual Guardian Angel prayer is not enough for me. “Let's say it for some little American girls,” I tell them, hoping that they will be too sleepy to ask for details. "Who are they? What happened?" they ask. I explain about the summer camp, the rising river. I think I should not – maybe they will be scared. Maybe they will ask where God was that night. Instead, they ask me where the girls are now. “In Jesus’ embrace,” I answer – the same answer my father gave me when I was 8 years old, when my younger brother died. And I think – that is the essence of faith, of the Grace we have been given: to be able to stand before these tragedies, before our daughters, and still be certain that there is a good Destiny for those girls and their parents, even if today that destiny is soaked in mud and tears. And that a Guardian Angel, on a bed with pink flowers that night, carries the strength of an ‘I love you’ to a mother in Texas.

Signed letter