Heidi Petersen was a freshman in high school when she found out her mothers death was due to suicide, not pneumonia, as she had been told the previous decade. A suicide attempt by her brother at the time brought the news to light. Petersen describes grief as a constant in her life, something that has lived in her, her household and her family members for as long as she could remember

This article has been reviewed according to ScienceX's editorial process and policies.

AMMON - Brecken Allegood is 16-years-old and was technically a junior at Hillcrest High School, but was able to graduate this year. He says hes able to graduate early because he had the resources available that have allowed him to do it. I did my eighth grade year and the first half of my ninth grade year at White Pine STEM Academy.

When Cormac McCarthy published his final two novels in quick succession late last year, it did not go unnoticed that he had created his first major female protagonist: Alicia Western, the tortured mathematical genius at the center of Stella Maris a hauntingly rendered transcription of her therapy sessions at a psychiatric institution in rural Wisconsin. In form and focus, the book was an unusual departure for McCarthy, a titan of American literature who died two weeks ago, just short of his 90th birthday. His best-known protagonists had long been recognized as almost mythic avatars of a certain kind of masculine stoicism embodied by Alicias brother, Bobby, a laconic salvage diver whose story is told in a companion novel, The Passenger, which is more conventionally structured.