Having never been dealt such an awful blow at first hand, most of us can only imagine the grief and horror for family members and close friends who lost daughters/sisters/loved ones in the fire at the Armadale Juvenile Correctional Centre at Alexandra, St Ann on Friday night.

It's in the nature of such tragedies that the rest of us experience a feeling of near hopelessness as we seek to console those hit hardest by grief.

For there is no way to replace a life, once lost. And the terrible effect is multiplied when that life is of a child.