A Parade of Grief

The Melcherts’ card arrived in the mail.  It began the way many others did.  It was wonderful to receive your Christmas card, they wrote.  Then news of the family—what the older children were doing, and their younger son Alex had begun his freshman year at College.  At that point the card changed tone: “Unfortunately Alex was shot six times coming back from a weekend in Columbus Sunday morn.  A nutcase blasted him at a rest stop.” That card—that sentence—persuaded me to write this book.