On Grief

The unflinching Pulitzer Prize-winning essay on mourning and recovery in the wake of an inconceivable tragedy. An Atlantic Edition, featuring long-form journalism by Atlantic writers, drawn from contemporary articles or classic storytelling from the magazine's 165-year archive.When Bobby McIlvaine died in the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, his loved ones spun off in radically different directions, each mourning in his or her own distinct-and often highly idiosyncratic-way. Twenty years later, Jennifer Senior, a family friend and award-winning reporter, revisits the McIlvaines, examines their present lives, and contemplates what grief really means, in all its jagged complexity.