It is quiet up there on the overpass.

You wouldn't think it would be so silent, but it is hushed like a church. The noise of the traffic on the freeway below is like the roar of the ocean on a vast beach. The wind bounces the balloons together in a hollow, metallic thump. The cellophane around the bouquets of flowers crunches with each gust. But the people who have to file sideways past each other to get past all the flowers and toys and balloons don't say anything. It is so quiet up there because there isn't much that can be said.

Even yesterday, four days after a child's life was lost at the Miller Street overpass, people are still visiting the site looking for answers that will never come and assurances that do not exist. This is a grief so wide and so deep all of Hawai'i could cry for a year and there would still be tears left unshed.

Many of the things left at the overpass are very personal. Most of the teddy bears and Care Bears and toys are brand new, but some look well-worn and loved, like a little child came to bring their favorite lovey to share with Cyrus. There is a blanket with the image of Jesus fastened to the railing. There are store-bought lei, home-made lei, crocheted lei and candles. Some people have brought offerings of food — oranges and soda and cookies — as you would at a Chinese cemetery. Many people wrote notes to the child, saying things like "Cyrus, you are loved and will never be forgotten."

Children hold their mother's hand as they visit the site, and big men in ball caps wipe away tears behind their sunglasses. It's as though every sorrow and loss of the island has been laid down right on this spot.

There is no talk of blame here. Tongues may be wagging and fingers may be pointing all over town, but not up here.

When the worst things happen, we comfort ourselves by the notion that "everything happens for a reason," even a reason that is unknowable to our feeble human hearts.

Perhaps not everything happens for a good reason. Certainly it is impossible to think of a good reason for this tragedy.

But that doesn't mean that lessons can't come after such a loss.

If each shiny balloon tied to that guardrail was a promise kept, if each little bear or turtle or fire truck was a commitment, if all the tears of helplessness turned into resolve to help another Hawai'i child in a precarious living arrangement, another mother struggling to keep her life together, another family banging along from one tough thing to another, then some good could come out of this senseless tragedy. It will still be senseless. That little boy should be alive. But maybe others can be saved. When that overpass memorial is taken down, that huge grief should turn elsewhere. It should turn to action.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.