There is a prominent grid square on our cultural map that I've learned not to see or talk about. I don’t look at the New York skyline, and I avoid the news for the three days around each anniversary of 9/11. My brother, Aaron Jacobs, was killed in the World Trade Center that day, along with thousands of others. In my daily interactions since then, I have had a terrific wife, world travels and cute kids at the ready to absorb the friendly need of others to situate me in a history. But while I no longer feel as I did in the first year—that I must be marked in some visible way by the loss that was grinding me up inside—I still steer away from casual mentions of Aaron in daily life. I don't talk about him on Facebook, for example; my memories of him, my ongoing sense of his absence, don't belong in that stream of grinning kid photos and funny videos. READ MORE