Though born in this country, at the age of ten, my mother had the great misfortune of being moved from the bustling city of Providence in Rhode Island, to a tiny hamlet in the mountains just outside of Naples. There she was forced to learn to cook in an open fireplace, to carry a water…
Decades ago, when I was just getting started in my legal career, I was a law clerk for a six-foot, four-inch, immensely imposing judge. Everyone called him “Your Honor.” I was a very junior law clerk, but even the most senior of his clerks, a man who had been with the judge for over a…
“Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust, thou shalt return.” I’m old enough to remember the priest murmuring that as he smeared ashes on my forehead, conveniently bared of my perpetual bangs by my Catholic school beanie. The words seared. I remembered them all year and waited for them the following year. Then…
