• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Diane called me from the hospital, her voice shaking, and I met her back at my apartment. She was visibly upset as she explained that she felt sorry for Bill and trapped by his illness. She was stung by guilt but also confused. I cooked her dinner and spent the night trying to comfort her, trying to figure out a way forward for us both.

Events took another bizarre turn a few weeks later when Bill’s disease went into remission. Once the hospital released him, Diane was really petrified. If he thinks he’s dying, she thought, maybe he’ll want to take me with him. I was soon heading to San Francisco for my next job, and we didn’t know what our next move should be.

The following spring, when we were both working in her office, a senior partner dropped by and asked Diane to move to New York to help open the firm’s new office in Manhattan. It was a huge vote of confidence, and she came into the empty office I was using to tell me the news. I was thrilled for her—but baffled when she told me she had turned it down. It would not only be a great professional opportunity and would reunite her with her family, but it would also put her at a safer distance from Bill.

“What’s the real reason you’re not going?” I asked.

“The real reason,” she said, “is that I would love to have a future with you, and there’s a better chance of that with you in San Francisco and me in Los Angeles than with you in San Francisco and me in New York.”

“Well,” I said without hesitating, “what if I went to New York, too?”

“Then I would go in a heartbeat.”

“Then I’ll go to New York.”

And that was that. Without ever really saying as much, we were moving to New York together. She told her law firm that she would accept the assignment and move. I told my San Francisco law firm about my change of heart. With the help of Jim Vorenberg, my beloved college and law school mentor, I ended up with an even better opportunity in New York, working as a staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. In many ways, it was my dream job.

Just as we were moving, Diane filed the divorce papers with the Los Angeles County sheriff, who served Bill. We made our engagement formal and public. Diane still feared for her safety; even uncontested divorces require a waiting period, so several months had to pass, which they did fortunately without incident. We made a smooth if hasty move to New York. In a fateful visit, Diane told her parents all at once about divorcing Bill, her plans to marry me, her move home to New York, and the house we were buying together in Brooklyn. They took it all in stride, and her anxieties gradually subsided. Finally, on Valentine’s Day 1984, the divorce was made final. Two days later, Bill succumbed to his leukemia. We were married later that spring.

Diane gives me credit for helping her out of a dark phase of her life, but in truth, I got as much out of those early experiences as I gave. I had had girlfriends before, some serious, with all the usual highs and lows. I had never been involved with anyone as deeply as I was with Diane, however, or who was in as complex a situation. Fresh out of law school, with my whole professional life ahead of me and still trying to find my way, I didn’t really want more complications. But there was a lesson here in unselfishness, a reminder that deeper love is less self-involved. My giving became a salve to Diane’s wounded spirit, but once her self-confidence was restored, she gave back abundantly. Our marriage has now held strong through many personal and professional changes, and I believe our one constant has been our ability to give and receive selfless love.

I had learned from teachers and mentors how to love openly, generously, and conspicuously. I’ve also tried to impart high standards and accountability, which is its own expression of love. As our daughters arrived—Sarah in 1985 and Katherine in 1989—I tried to parent in that same fashion. Of course, I say that now. At the beginning, I was mainly a soft touch.

When Sarah was an infant, one of the first things she learned was how