When I first started thinking about my first grief teachers, I thought immediately of Cassie. She is the first person I remember losing. The first death I remember understanding as a loss. The more I sit with that, though, the less certain I am that she was my first grief teacher. I think grief had already found me. I was five when my parents divorced. It was tumultuous and chaotic and traumatic. At one point, my dad kidnapped us. After that, he moved about eight hours away,