We Are All Broken

Six Ways to Help Heal Ourselves

In 1957 my homeroom teacher, Robert Lee, wrote a note at the bottom of the worst report card of my life — mostly C’s, at least one B, and two D’s. He said that I was doing “below average work.”

Two years earlier my dad was struck in his car by a man racing through an intersection. Dad died in the emergency room of the hospital. He left behind a 36-year-old widow and seven children ages 3 months to 10 years. I was second to the oldest, age 9.