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When I went to Rachel's house to interview her for the first time, I had my notes and questions,

a whole game plan like I do. Within half an hour, I gave up on all that. We were sitting in her

living room facing a big Christmas tree covered in beautiful, strange ornaments of insects sent to her by friends and strangers. Her brother Peter had raised butterflies. And Rachel talked for six hours. Peter had been dead less than two months. It was her first Christmas without him being alive.

Her first birthday is the sole remaining family member.

Her birthday is Christmas Eve.

She just talked about her family, especially her brother.

People want so much to vilify his inaction,

and myself included in that, you know, and my brother was considered

a villain. They were like, oh my God, he should be busted for manslaughter, like, back when he was

still alive. She's talking about some of the responses she got on Twitter. She wrote about how

her brother hadn't gotten their father to the hospital when he was dying of COVID.

And, you know, that's just how it is everywhere.

I get it.

The internet is what it is.

But I just, he has been reduced to like this bumbling conspiracy theory riddled anti-vaxxer who just sat by

and watched his dad die and then he himself died and there are so many contributing factors to that.

The disinformation and misinformation, the whole swirl of rage politics and social media,

is part of what happened in Rachel's family.

The swirl matters.

It did real damage.

But for Rachel, it was nowhere near enough to come to a real understanding of her brother's death.

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