This column will be about grief, depression, and a life cut short. Stop right here if this is a turnoff, but the grief is mine, the depression was my brother’s, as was the life too short.

I will not name him, but will say he practiced plaintiff law solo in a southwestern state for 35 plus years. He died of cancer last June, four years after an initial diagnosis. He was treated into remission, which lasted for about three years, but then the cancer came back with a vengeance in 2018 and he was gone by June 2019, having been age 65 for just over a month. He left a wife of 32 years and two daughters in their 20s.