“They looked to each other for support, for strength, and at times, motivation, to remember why and for whom they lived.”

“They left their encampment with dirt-covered linen strewn about the abandoned grounds amongst clothes, shoes, children’s toys and other discarded belongings. The handcart wheels crunched over them, and the dry wheels screamed as the Willie Company started for Zion.”

“Some had come to look upon death as a mercy. Death meant warmth. Death was light. Life was cruel, cold, heavy and dark. Life was pain. Death was deliverance, and many would welcome it. Others doggedly clung to life and willed themselves to walk on.”

“She considered what had made Denmark home to her anyway. Was it the sense of familiarity? That wherever she went there were echoes of a hundred memories she could pluck from her thoughts?”

“Her sadness was like a deep well just beneath the surface of her determination.”

“He was not being courageous as he bore the freezing stream for his wife and children. He simply chose between the lesser of two evils—the pain and suffering he would endure in the river, a physical pain that he could stand to bear, or the pain and suffering he would feel if he had to watch his family wade across and freeze. It was not a decision. The choice had already been made the moment Ole proposed marriage to his wife and welcomed these beautiful daughters into the world.”

“She took comfort in the familiarity of his smell, knowing that if she lost all her possessions and her home, at least she would have her family.”

“She had walked to the brink, abandoning all belief, and just before the bitter end, she was pulled from the abyss by faith.”

“They looked to each other for support, for strength, and at times, motivation, to remember why and for whom they lived.”

“She felt the depth of her losses before they were realized, and she wondered, Is there still hope? Did she even dare hold on to such a tenuous thing as hope?”