This month marks the beginning of the 16th year that I have been writing the Business of Law column for The Legal Intelligencer. One crucial constant throughout its lifespan was the presence and influence of my wife, Yvonne, whom I met while I was a first-year law student at GW and she was an undergrad at the University of Maryland. We only dated sporadically while we were in school, but each get together was rather remarkable. Those memories carried us for the five years, after we both graduated, when we didn’t see each other while we were building separate careers in different cities. Fate eventually intervened and a wonderful life together commenced in June, 1990, when we married.

No number crunching is necessary to calculate that we should be celebrating our 31st year of marriage next month. Sadly, the words “should be” were used, above, as Yvonne died of a rare form of lung cancer (despite being a nonsmoker) in February of this year. We were rocked to our core when the diagnosis came out of the blue in September 2019, particularly since Yvonne was at Stage IV and was given two-three weeks to live. Yvonne checked every box that would have led one to predict that she couldn’t get cancer, as she was outwardly quite healthy, had a great diet, avoided environmental exposures (including on our lawn, in which we tolerated weeds in lieu of pesticides), worked out daily and was very fit, was imbued with a positive attitude, and had a wide, and deep, circle of friends and relatives who loved and revered her.  Moreover, we even had read, and followed the precepts outlined in The New York Times bestseller, “How Not to Die!” I am not sure what else we possibly could have done to prevent her cancer and the answer is likely “nothing,” as it simply may have been meant to be.

This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.

To view this content, please continue to their sites.

Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Why am I seeing this?

LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.

For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]