And at the same time, what we really had to try and do was set aside our own grief to take care of those kids.

There was this big puff, this big ball of smoke, with the two trailing boosters. But because we didn't know what we were looking at, we didn't realize that big ball was the explosion . . . We were all just watching what we thought was a phase of a launch.

We were so torn, because as adults, as teachers, we had grown up with the space program and knew that what had just happened was incredibly devastating.

Despite claims of being distraught and confused, sometime while he had the body he did take time, in his grief, to stop by a bordello. To comfort himself, I guess.

There should be a statute of limitation on grief. A rulebook that says it is all right to wake up crying, but only for a month. That after 42 days you will no longer turn with your heart racing, certain you have heard her call out your name. That there will be no fine imposed if you feel the need to clean out her desk; take down her artwork from the refrigerator; turn over a school portrait as you pass - if only because it cuts you fresh again to see it. That it's okay to measure the time she has been gone, the way we once measured her birthdays.

In normal circumstances, you would be allowed the time to process your grief and then to get some distance so you can get back to your own life. Me and my sisters and my brother, we've never gotten any distance.