Collecting Memories From the Aftermath of a Tragedy

Three hundred boxes brimming with grief are stacked in an archaeology lab down the hall from Sylvia Grider's office at Texas A&M University. Three hundred boxes of pocket Bibles, toy tractors, faded silk flowers, and blue jeans patched with duct tape. Boxes of poems, Beanie Babies, and baseball caps inscribed "To the Chosen 12." Nearby are the handmade posters -- neatly rolled now -- and the memorial plaque that someone cast in bronze almost overnight, and the plywood message boards so

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