On Monday morning, students at Michigan State will return to class and attempt, as the saying goes, to pick up the pieces. But the pieces you pick up after a tragic loss are merely the ones that are left. When you put them back together, there is always something missing.
The pieces that the Anderson family will pick up will no longer include their daughter, Arielle, who was 19 when she died. Same for the Verner family, and their daughter, Alexandria, who was 20. The pieces that the Fraser family will pick up will not contain their 20 year-old son, Brian, who breathed his last Monday night in East Lansing.