Two of the little girls washed away in the floodwaters were sisters. Blair and Brooke Harber were their names. Blair was 13 years old. Brooke was 11. When they found their lifeless bodies fifteen miles downstream, they were still holding hands.

When Jennifer shared this with me last night, I thought this couldn’t possibly be true. Then I looked it up. It seems it is true. The New York Post reported it. So did the Houston Chronicle and the Associated Press.

But here’s the thing. I have two daughters. If there’s one thing I know for sure about them, had they been swept away in a similar tragedy, we’d have discovered them in a similar embrace.

Madeline and Evelyn are as different as night and day. One loves to fly. The other could spend the whole day fishing. One prefers all things scary. The other is most comfortable in cowboy boots. One slips into unfamiliar scenes with quiet grace. The other makes sure everyone in the room knows where she stands on pretty much everything. But for as different as they are, the love they have for Christ, their family, and each other has never needed them to be alike. It has only needed them to be near.

So, while Jen was reading to me about those two girls, I’ll admit I got a little choked up. Who wouldn’t? Although I didn’t let her see it. She was already struggling to read the article, and a husband needs to be sturdy at these times and in these ways. Still, it was hard to hear, not just for the sorrow of it, but for the unseen truth, something familiar to me, that stirred in the swirling muck of a dreadful situation. The kind of love those girls had, I see it in my own daughters. That kind of final grasp isn’t made in a moment. It’s made over the years through late-night whispers, shared stories, and tearful apologies. It’s born from a wordless understanding between two sisters who know each other sometimes better than they know themselves. It is a love that holds on.

I know Madeline and Evelyn would have held on, too. And I believe they still will, no matter how far the current of life carries them. Because love like that just doesn’t let go. Even better, they have a Savior who won’t let go of them. And together, as sisters, they know it. They know even if the world gives way beneath them, He is there. By faith, they know, just as the seemingly simple and yet incredibly profound song goes, “Little ones to Him belong. They are weak, but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me.”