Grief

Rome
(Alessandro Di Meo / EPA / September 21, 2009)

The 7-year-old son of Lt. Antonio Fortunato touches his father's coffin in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. A state funeral was held Monday for six Italian soldiers killed by a suicide car bomber in Kabul, Afghanistan, last Thursday. The service was officiated by the military ordinary for Italy, Msgr Vincenzo Pelvi.

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Before even knowing the caption, when I saw this photo (from the Los Angeles Times' "The Week in Pictures"), I felt my heart break.

How does a child grieve a loss? How does he cope?

This is pain frozen in time, and a premature onset of manhood for this boy towards becoming his own man and his father's son.