Boundless joy:

The story of an Indonesian couple reunited with their seven-year-old daughter this week is one that should resonate with parents around the world. “I am so happy,” the mother, Hernini, said. “This is like medicine for my heart.”

After weeks of fearful glances at corpses in the streets and frantic scannings of survivor lists, the parents found Putri safe in a refugee camp near Banda Aceh.

Homeless and with their possessions washed out to sea, they held their daughter in their arms and felt rich beyond measure. It is the same for all reunited families after a catastrophe — natural or man-made. Survivors who escaped the 9/11 terrorist attacks were embraced like so many miracles — as were the people who had changed flight plans or who were delayed on the way to the aiport so that they never boarded the doomed planes.

Parents whose children emerged terrified from Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, or from the massacre at Scotland’s Dunblane Primary School in 1996, or from too many scenes of violence elsewhere, share the bottomless well of relief with the Indonesian parents.

The story of a child who was lost and found is a reminder to feel joy today, in fortunate weather, and to celebrate the presence of people who are irreplaceable — and for whom one would give everything one owned to bring back if suddenly taken away. — The Boston Globe