Neither, it turns out, did I.

That is the arithmetic that steadies me on the nights the fear comes back: not that I did enough to be remembered, but that I spent, in the end, on the right things.

A woman is not the sum of what was taken from her.

She is the sum of what she gave on purpose, with her eyes open, to the people and the causes she chose — and by that measure, the measure that counts, I am not poor and I am not small.

I taught the reading.

I built the endowment.