There's nothing that anyone can say that can make life feel less raw for a region and multiple communities struggling to make sense of two homicides within less than two weeks.
But there are a few things that everyone can do that can start to help.
Be kind to one another. Be patient. Be available. Be a friend.
Be fair. Be honest. Be accommodating. Be civil. Be respectful.
All that kindness will be especially necessary in the weeks and months to come, as the trials of the accused assailants in these two murders grind their way through the legal system.
Friends and family of Melissa Barratt and Michael Martin will hear those shots fired, over and over and over, in the form of testimony, in the form of very public unfolding of lives and livelihoods that under other circumstances would remain discreet.
The true measure of our community is what we do with that information as we learn it.
Will we use what we learn for good? Will the legal consequences of these violent acts bring out the best in us? Or will we compound the pain of the killings as the people charged in these homicides move through the criminal justice system?
In the case of Barratt, who police say was caught up in a world of drugs and violence, will we look at the scourge of substance abuse and its effect on the lives and livelihoods of too many of our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters?
Or will we be voyeurs, following the ins and outs of the case as though we were reading an Archer Mayor novel?
Will we perceive Martin's killing as a random tragedy, the result of a bad performance review for an unhinged employee, and move on?
Or will we take a deep look at the journey of his assailant from peaceful, well-liked, stable neighbor to someone so tortured that the only way out for him was an act of unthinkable, unforgivable violence?
Will we question why one victim received an international outpouring of grief while another victim, who died just as gruesome a death, was so easily shrugged off as collateral damage in a drug-related conflict?
Many of us are also still hurting and grieving deeply not only for the victims of these two shootings, but for our own perception of place, our assumptions of well-being shaken to the core.
We like to think of Vermont as a Shangri-La, a picture-postcard place exempt from this sort of violence. That perception was, at best, a coarse simplification of the more nuanced truth.
We have no answers now - only questions about how we will move past the details of these two heartbreaking deaths.
For now, we should simply honor the memories of Melissa Barratt and Michael Martin.
And in that spirit, in this ever-so-fragile life, we should give thanks for the lives, good health, and continued safety of our own friends, family, and neighbors.