The first time it happened, I was in the first grade. My family is Catholic, and on Sundays we attended mass. Afterwards, I went to my CCD class—religious education, for the non-Catholics—for an hour. In each class, we read a Bible passage and discussed its meaning and waited impatiently to run into the hall to get cookies afterwards.

One Sunday, I was the last child packing my bag at the end of class. My teacher sat at her desk. Apropos of nothing, she said, “My brother was killed in Vietnam.”

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