How a Near Stranger Helped Me Cope with Death

In late 1996, when I was 35 years old, I had finally reached a point in my life where I felt I had just about everything I had ever wanted. I had grown up in extreme poverty, in rural Georgia. But I had been lucky and hardworking enough to become a professor of psychology at UCLA. In fact, I had just received tenure. I even had a pretty happy marriage. After all, I had not yet discovered that my wife was a lesbian (nor had she, by the way). I had almost completed a book on one of my favorite topics, and the book was getting great reviews. And then the impossible happened.