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Good morning. I wonder what it must be like to have woken from a nightmare - only to realise that the terrifying dream is the new reality. That was what happened to the people of the close-knit Welsh mining community of Aberfan.  50 years ago yesterday 144 people lost their lives, 116 of them children, when a coal tip collapsed onto their village.

The families who’d lost a loved one have had to live with what happened every day. The loss of a generation of children is particularly heart-breaking. What might their child have become? No one can say. But what they were that day when the mountain of coal waste slipped is something they always will be: they are part of the family. The children who died are still loved and cherished and their stories have been shared with siblings born after the tragedy and passed down through the generations.

From the moment a child is born she or he creates a new pattern of relationships. We’re all being formed by those with whom we share our lives. So alongside the various public commemorations there will be hundreds of private ones.

Yesterday the nation remembered the disaster, but everyday those families and the community of Aberfan remember their children, each one precious and unique and loved, still with a place in their heart.

The book of Isaiah tells us that when God wants to reassure us of his love, he promises never to forget us: ‘See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands’. Each of us, always at the forefront of God’s mind. The God who loves us like a parent, who always remembers.

Father of all, whose son Jesus Christ came to share the life of a human family in Nazareth, be with all who grieve today. Give them light in their darkness, comfort in their sorrow and strength to face the years to come. Amen.