Grieving a 21-year old is complicated enough without dealing with an ongoing investigation.

I can’t talk about the particulars. Even though forming sentences about this agony is the only mental activity that gives shape to this bottomless grief.

Something took my daughter, yet I can’t speak of it. How can this be true if I can’t chew it and swallow? I figured out just now the reason my throat seizes up when I think of her. It’s because I can’t give voice to what I’m thinking, let alone feeling. It’s literally stuck in my throat.

There’s no turning back. And there’s no going forward. I am gagging on my existence, two and a half times her age, a travesty now that she’s gone.

But she was right here. She was right here, last I saw.

Last I checked, she was here in this world. She was doing fine, I thought. She walked among us. She was needed. She had two boxes of contact lenses in her bathroom drawer. She had a purpose, and...