REPORTS say they stabbed babies. They shot fleeing, terrified youngsters in the back. They laughed as they filmed themselves raping teenagers. They forced children to drink their own urine and eat plants. They bombed, butchered and slaughtered with smiles on their faces.

It has been hard enough explaining it all to my own kids. God only knows how the parents in Beslan can tell it, or make sense of it, because the one thing we do know is that this horror will haunt them and the survivors, for every minute of every hour of all the time they have left in this world.

The death of a child is bad enough. But the death of so many children, massacred without pity, without mercy; after months of careful planning by people who look like humans but behave like soulless automatons, is too much to bear.

In the weeks and months ahead there will be many more casualties of the massacre of Beslan, as more and more of these poor people see no hope for the future among such wickedness, and take their own lives in despair.

What to say, what to write about it all. Because nothing any of us write or say or send can make any difference, or do any good.

All the money in the world won't help the people of Beslan bring their loved ones back and blot out the nightmare. Even if they realised that every parent in the world is mourning for them, for once, it probably won't make the blindest bit of difference.

Grief can be assuaged by kind works and thoughtful deeds and the knowledge that people really do care. But not, I fear, the grief brought about by an act such as this.

Already we are being told that lessons must be learned from Beslan. Indeed. And they are mostly terrible ones, that teach us to hate more and live our lives in even more fear, for we have now seen the particular vision of hell that the enemies of mankind have prepared for us.

But there are other lessons too. If Beslan can teach us anything, it is that every day is a precious gift, every hour we can spend looking at beautiful things, listening to the voices of our children, and in the company of our loved ones, is to be cherished and given thanks for.

On Saturday morning, which dawned bright and clear, my first thought was, how dare the sun shine? How dare people sit and laugh and enjoy themselves after what we've all seen.

But thank God the sun does still shine and that we can find things to make us happy.

Thank God, too, for the tiny, simple pleasures of life, now that we know that collecting our kids, safe, happy and tired from school is a blessing, not a chore.

At times like this our first instinct is to hold our own even tighter and we should, for all those who would now give anything to be able to do the same.

Our second instinct is, I suspect, to wonder how we ever dare complain about anything, ever again.