My first conscious dramatic loss was my dog brownie when I was 7 or something. It was in the Smokey Mountains where my grandparents retired, outside of Hayesville. They'd bought a brown dog for me and called him Brownie. He was a puppy. My aunt ran over him, I guess he was laying under the car, in the shade on a hot summer's day. He was wiggling about, obviously incapacitated by being run over. My grandfather got out his .22 rifle, and put Brownie out of his misery. My grandmother told me not to watch. They buried him and put a wooden cross over the spot where they buried him. Last time I was in Hayesville, I saw the cross where Brownie is buried. Reading Hamnet, it is just so sad. We don't even know if Shakespeare got there in time for the burial, but the novel imagines into the space, creates a family to whom the loss was grave. Quite sad. We lost Ruth Bader Ginsburg yesterday. She was 87 years old. I don't know much about her beyond her being towards the liberal en...