On the morning my mom died, I came home from the hospital with my dad and my grandparents and my aunt and my uncle. I sat on the couch, eating a yogurt, becoming more and more agitated, feeling like the only thing that might possibly help would be if I could crawl out of my own skin. The only thing anyone could think to do with me was send me to school, for Student Leader Training, which had been the day’s original plan — the one written in on the calendar my mom kept, before August 28th became the Day She Died. I sat there, in the training, wide-eyed, staring into space. The facts of the day marched back and forth in my brain. It seemed impossible that I still seemed to exist, despite the fact that the thing I had dreaded most my entire life had finally happened.