For a week now, conversations about loss with small, school-age children here have thrown up a single, predictable theme: their treasured school stash.
The pristine white uniforms, the white socks and shoes, the brand new school-bag, the pencil-case, the ruler; all had been saved for and set aside for the longed-for day when they would set off for the new school year.
Monday was to have been that day for 100,000 children. But for countless thousands the day turned out to be very different. In the worst-hit areas such as Ampara, 50 per cent of the dead were children, and many others lost either one or both parents.
In the north-eastern district of Mullaitivu, several hundred children are dead and 14 of their schools obliterated. In the southern district, five school principals are reported dead.
About a third of the country's schools are believed to have been affected. Out of 160 buildings, affecting around 77,000 students, 59 were destroyed and the rest will require reconstruction. To compound the problem, another 271 are being used as welfare centres for refugees.
The government and agencies here are acutely aware that a return to school would be the best possible therapy for traumatised children. In Mullaitivu, discussions are continuing about acquiring 3,500 tents to house refugees who have to be moved from the schools.
As the early-morning streets in unaffected areas teemed with the lucky ones striding proudly forth in their whiter-than-white uniforms, on the coastline children trickled back to buildings that were dank and barely habitable, with broken desks, washed-up schoolbooks and yards full of muck, churned up by lorries.
Teachers, many of whom had put their backs into loading trucks with debris, now had to brace themselves for poignant roll calls, armed only with rudimentary counselling training.
At one small school near this southern city of Galle, a teacher leaned wearily against a wall, briefly dropped her wide, determined smile, took a look at her roll call and said: "I know all these children, every one.
"I think that five are missing in that, maybe six in this one. But maybe it is that they've moved away to be with relatives. Maybe some just couldn't find the strength to make the journey here," she said, her voice trailing away.
In another school students are sharing the two-storey building with refugees, a situation not helped by the fact that 20 of the 68 rooms are badly damaged.
At Sudhamma College, teachers fully expect a third of their students to be missing. Many of those who do return will require extremely close monitoring for mental and emotional trauma. The process of psychological recovery will be a long and trying one.
The newspapers here are full of professional advice on the expected symptoms of disturbed children and how to handle them, beginning with the advice to "forget your work and the syllabus for some time". On top of that, teachers are being advised to watch out for "unfamiliar children" among the new admissions. "Check for authenticity of birth certificates. Adults may pose off as genuine parents".
It is believed that about a quarter of students in the affected areas made it back to school, and in some of those cases it was simply to ask for aid of some kind or because they needed a break from the camps.
Teachers are taking the advice and forgetting the regulations about haircuts, uniform checks and timekeeping for a week or two. As one teacher put it : "Now for us, a child arriving in late is an occasion for great joy for we know he or she is alive".
Meanwhile, the newspapers and the telegraph poles still carry poignant notices and desperate requests for information on missing children. Miska is one of them. She was four and went with her father to his shop. His body was found but not Miska's. "She speaks Tamil, Sinhala and Malay and was wearing a pink frock . . ."