Behind Jaden Grayson Was an Overwhelming Loss. In Front of Him, Uncertainty.

The road out of Rolling Fork unfurls for what seems like forever into the flat, yawning horizon of the Mississippi Delta. The relentless spread of fields is usually interrupted only by bumpy roads and the occasional gas station. On an April afternoon in 2023, though, there were also strips of metal twisted into abstract sculptures, the remnants of a tornado that had recently swept through.

All of it whooshed by Jaden Grayson that spring day, as he looked out the window of his uncle’s car.

Weeks earlier, Jaden had survived the tornado that killed 17 people in and around Rolling Fork, including the grandmother who had stood in for his mother for most of his childhood. The home he shared with her was nothing but cement steps and scattered debris. When Jaden, then 16, sifted through it, everything he recovered could fit in a laundry basket.

Then he was told that he was going to Arkansas. His Uncle Jarvis was taking him in.

Jaden, right, and his uncle, Jarvis Odems, at Jaden’s grandmother’s funeral in April 2023.

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The car ride ended in Springdale, Ark., about 400 miles from Rolling Fork.

Jaden carried his things into the two-bedroom townhouse that he would share with four other people. There was Jarvis Odems, his 28-year-old uncle; Tami Johnson, Jarvis’s longtime girlfriend; their 8-year-old daughter, Aubrielle; and Marco, Tami’s 13-year-old son, with whom Jaden would share a room.