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I\u00a0<\/span>had a whole month\u2019s worth of blog posts planned out.<\/p>\n I was going to give you a little tour of my new website<\/strong><\/a>, which has been a year in the making and which I’ve been eager to share with you — including the new sections on parenting<\/strong><\/a>, soul work<\/strong><\/a>, hearth and home<\/strong><\/a>, and writing and reading<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n In honor of the six-month, \u201chalf-birthday\u201d of my latest book, Magical Journey<\/strong><\/a>, I intended to excerpt some of the inspiring, heartfelt letters I\u2019ve received from readers \u2013 and to ask you to consider buying a hardcover copy before they vanish for good from bookstore shelves, to make way for the last wave of summer beach reads.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been \u00a0looking forward to writing about my friend Beth Kephart\u2019s<\/strong><\/a> wonderful new book, Handling the Truth<\/strong><\/a>, which will be published next week, about the art of living well and the equally demanding art of making the personal universal. (For now, I’ll simply say: if you write memoir in any way, shape, or form, you need this book.)<\/p>\n A summer vacation in Montana without our sons gave me lots to think about, as I both missed my boys on a daily basis (actually, on a moment-by-moment basis) and, at the same time, appreciated the freedom of not having to worry about meeting the needs and expectations of a younger generation of travelers. There is, I know, an essay to be written here.<\/p>\n And then, early last Sunday morning, came the news of a death. A dear friend\u2019s nineteen-year-old son — killed instantly in a tragic accident.\u00a0<\/p>\n H<\/span>e was a boy I\u2019ve known ever since the day his mom joyfully revealed her pregnancy by announcing to a group of us women friends, \u201cI did it again!\u201d A boy I\u2019ve loved and cheered for and prayed for since he arrived on this earth. A boy who grew, right alongside my own younger son, from a chubby blond toddler into a handsome, thoughtful, athletic teenager with a passion for music and motorcycles. A boy whose young life was both touched by early loss and full of hope and promise. A boy whose childhood was inextricably intertwined, day in and day out, with two other boys I love with all my heart. In the backyard that our three families shared, it was always Jack and Nick and Will. Three boys, born within a year of one another and living within a stone\u2019s throw of one another, who never had to arrange a play date because there was always a best friend right next door, ready to throw a baseball or play a game of hide and seek or go in search of an adventure.<\/p>\n There is a part of me, of course, that yearns to write about the loss of this boy here, now, because writing is the way I work my way toward peace. But there is also a part of me that must acknowledge at this moment the utter failure of words.<\/p>\n