When the River Took Their Names
27 stanzas for the campers and counselors lost to the Texas floods, and a final stanza for the rest of the world’s forgotten children
27 stanzas for the campers and counselors lost to the Texas floods, and a final stanza for the rest of the world’s forgotten children
📜 A Letter to the Universe
Dear Universe,
I don’t always know what to say when the weight of sorrow is this heavy.
Sometimes, the only thing I know how to do is write it down— to build a raft out of language, and hope it floats toward the people who need it most.
This weekend, floodwaters rose too fast in Texas.
Too fast for summer to feel safe.
Too fast for children to find higher ground.
At least 27 souls—campers and counselors—were taken by the river.
I grew up at summer camp.
Girl Scout cabins, church retreats, mess hall hymns, and lake baptisms. I still remember the scratch of sleeping bags and the smell of mosquito spray—
Camp was never supposed to end like this.
So this poem is for them.
Each stanza, a candle.
Each word, a life jacket for the ones left behind.
But I also know—grief is not bound by borders.
There are other children. Other camps. Other rivers.
Some filled with water, some with fire.
There are girls across oceans whose tragedies will not trend.
Whose deaths will not prompt presidential condolences.
Whose names will be whispered only by wind.
So this tribute is also for them.
I believe that true reverence does not discriminate.
And love, when it is honest, expands.
With tenderness,
—Rebecca M. Bell
🕊️ @rmbellwrites
“When the River Took Their Names”
27 stanzas for the lost, and a final stanza for the forgotten
1.
They came with hearts wide open,
with bug spray and bravery,
with songs still stuck from the car ride,
and dreams like dew on morning grass.
2.
They were the keepers of camp traditions—
the ones who remembered all the verses,
who showed the new girls how to braid lanyards,
and how to listen for owls after dark.
3.
They trusted the trees to hold them.
Trusted the earth to be still.
No one warns you that water remembers
what we forget.
4.
The Guadalupe rose not like a song,
but a siren—
angry and fast,
a river turned requiem.
5.
And still—they ran for one another.
Tethered arms in rushing current,
not one soul thinking of self
when there were others still downstream.
6.
Call them brave.
Call them children.
Call them counselors, campers, sisters,
saviors.
7.
The counselors didn’t flinch.
Even when the trees cracked,
even when the sirens wailed,
they stayed.
8.
Because love doesn’t calculate.
It doesn’t run.
It throws the rope,
again and again.
9.
One had just turned fifteen.
She wore nail polish chipped from tetherball games.
The kind of girl who laughed with her whole body;
and the kind of girl whose smile lit up the cabin before lights out.
10.
Some of their names were whispered to the sky
by mothers in kitchens
waiting on calls
that would never ring.
11.
Others will only be known by wristbands,
wet journals,
backpacks found
wrapped in vines.
12.
We honor them not by understanding,
but by remembering—
the way they sang grace off-key,
and splashed too much at free swim.
13.
They were still learning how to tie knots.
Still figuring out who they were.
And still—they showed more courage
than men twice their age.
14.
This world breaks us,
but these girls—
they held each other
even as the water came.
15.
Tell me that isn’t holy.
16.
I hope the next world has dry socks,
and warm cocoa,
and the counselors who died
are the first to greet them.
17.
I hope they get to lead cabin songs
under skies that never threaten.
That the storm stays far, far behind.
18.
May the survivors feel arms around them
in the stillness of night—
not ghostly,
but guardian.
19.
Let the grief come like morning fog,
soft and slow—
not to drown them again,
but to wrap them in remembrance.
20.
Let the headlines fade,
but not the names.
Let no tragedy
erase their joy.
21.
They deserve more than candlelight vigils.
More than memorial benches.
They deserve a world
that learns.
22.
But until then,
we will whisper their stories,
breathe their laughter into new leaves,
and carry their courage in our marrow.
23.
Not as statistics.
Not as lost.
But as daughters, friends, protectors,
light-bearers.
24.
They came to camp
to make friendship bracelets.
They left this world
woven into history.
25.
And the water, cruel as it was,
cannot erase
what they gave us.
26.
So we build this raft of words—
a life jacket for the soul—
for every sister, parent, friend
left behind on shore.
27.
And if grief is the river,
then love must be the bridge.
Step gently.
They’re still with us.
P.S. [28] Unnumbered for the Countless
And still—
there are girls with no vigils,
whose bunk beds were bomb shelters,
whose counselors wore camouflage,
whose summer camps came with warning sirens
and rationed bread.
There are children who do not make headlines,
whose rivers rise with bullets,
not rain.
No trending tags.
No prayer chains.
Just the ache of a world that only weeps
for some.
But I light this candle for all of them—
the ones swept away by water,
the ones buried beneath rubble,
the ones whose names
never leave their mother’s mouth.
No child is forgettable.
No soul too distant to mourn.
And love,
when it is honest,
never stops at the border.
📎
If you want to help:
Donate to verified flood recovery funds in Texas
Support refugee aid organizations worldwide
Say their names. All of them.