The above-titled piece, co-written with my wife, the fabulous Adele, is up at http://broadstreetreview.com/cross-cultural/compassion
Gordie, Adele’s brother, an AmCiv professor at Amherst and a lovely man, began his weekly call by dolefully announcing that his wife’s closest friend’s divorced daughter’s significant other had been murdered – perhaps by his ex-wife. I received this bulletin by speaker phone and Adele’s responsive “That’s awful!” direct. We had met the friend once, and I had exchanged e-mails with the daughter seven or eight years ago. We had not known that she had married or divorced or that the significant other existed.