I’ve mourned relatives, students, people from my past. As piercing as some of these deaths have been, it wasn’t until Aug. 21, 2021, that I became someone whose grief is permanent. That day, in the early, still-dark hours, I woke up and saw my mom had called at an even earlier, darker, hour. When I called her back, she delivered the worst news of my life. My 35-year-old brother Tyler had died in a car accident the night before.
