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    The day of graduation started out overcast and then gave way to white shots of lightning slicing through torrents of rain.
    I waited in the line with my friend Alice Ilchman. She had retired from the post of president and bought a house with her husband a few blocks from campus. Alice stayed remarkably the same over time, with only a little more gray in her straight blond hair.
    There was always the feeling when I was near her that I was in the presence of a tremen-dous energy source, the kind of fire that comes from the perfect balance of intelligence and compassion. For as long as I had known her I had wished that I could bottle up just a quarter cup of her effervescence and 9 1

    take it with me to have in the moments when my own intelligence and compassion failed.
    Alice had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer about a month before, and the anima-tion that so distinguished my friend had not diminished as her health had waned. Now we sat together on a low stone wall to conserve our energy before the procession. She brushed aside all inquiries about how she was doing, and so while we waited I told her about Allan and the pages I’d thrown away.
    She considered this for a while. It was as if she could hear my speech coming in from somewhere in the distance and knew just how bad it had been. “Very sound advice,” she told me, and held my hand. “Always listen to Allan.”
    I had listened to Allan, but I didn’t fully understand how perceptive he had been 9 2

    until I was up on the platform with all the speakers who came before me. Every one of them was important, instructive, and serious unto dire. I pictured myself delivering my recently abandoned address, being both dull and pedantic, and that picture was a knife through my heart. Holding my new speech in my hands, I had never been so grateful to anyone as I was at that moment to my teacher, who twenty years later and a thou-sand miles away was still able to save me from making a fool of myself.
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    The sun returned as soon as the procession was over. At the reception afterward a young woman came up and told me that Alice had gotten tired at the ceremony and 9 3

    had to go home, but that she wanted me to stop by before I left town. Her daughter, Sarah, now grown up and married, was visit-ing, and Alice wanted me to say hello. By the time I arrived, Alice had put away her heavy academic gown and hood, and came down the stairs in jeans and a sweater. She was fragile, thin, luminous. When she saw me she held out her arms. “Dear girl,” she said, “I knew you’d come.”
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    I had never imagined the true gift that would come of being asked to give the commencement address at my college: the chance to say good-bye to my friend.
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    This book lets me pay honor where honor is due. It is a rare and wonderful thing to be able to dedicate a book, to say in print: these are the people I love, the ones to whom I am most grateful.
    I do, and I am.
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    P H O T O C R E D I T S
    pages i–ii: © Dennis MacDonald / Alamy page vi: AGFC50—© Jupiterimages/ Brand X / Alamy pages vii–viii: AHWCTB—© Visions of America, LLC / Alamy pages ix–x: A4CF9C—© Chad Ehlers / Alamy page xi: A7XT09—© Kim Karpeles / Alamy page 5: © JLImages / Alamy
    pages 12–13: AECJDF—© Adrian Sherratt / Alamy page 17: © Colin Anderson / Getty Images page 19: A8F18Y—© Digital Vision / Alamy page 24: © Kaoru and Jed Share / Jupiterimages pages 27–28: AWXJFD—© K-PHOTOS / Alamy page 32: AGE2DE—© Chad Ehlers / Alamy pages 36–37: © Windsor & Wiehahn / Getty Images page 41: PDP0944612—© Photodisc / Veer page 43: IMP0130090—© image100 / Veer page 44: © Colin Anderson / Getty Images pages 48–49: © Image Source / Jupiterimages page 53: CBP002651—© Corbis / Veer pages 54–55: DVP4910148—© Digital Vision / Veer page 56: CBP0026504—© Corbis / Veer page 61: A59411—© Eyebyte / Alamy pages 64–65: