David McElroy

A friend called me Monday evening to give me some news about someone I used to know. A woman I knew in high school has been diagnosed with cancer. It’s Stage 4 brain cancer.

I haven’t seen the woman since high school, but her husband — who I knew casually back then — is a banker who I deal with from time to time. I knew his wife very well back then, mostly from long trips on a church bus.

A couple of weeks ago, she suddenly felt strange and passed out. She was quickly diagnosed and had surgery, but what I read about Stage 4 brain cancer doesn’t sound promising.

I can’t help thinking how much it must change your view of the world when you find out that your life is suddenly threatened in a serious way. And how does it change you when this happens to your wife? Or your husband? Or whoever you love most?

Wouldn’t it completely change the meaning of your life? The things that seemed so important before would become meaningless — and the most mundane routines of love would become priceless.

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I’ve discovered my “ideal girl” about half a dozen times so far — and each experience has changed me.

In the second grade, there was Lisa Lane. By the fifth grade, Wendy Ford was the new standard. In the eighth grade, I met Gail James. Nothing immediately came of that, but by the time we were freshmen in college, we finally dated. For the next three years. I almost married her.

As an adult, there have been three other women, each one more perfect — in some way I couldn’t explain — than the previous one. Not a single one of the women has actually been perfect, of course, but I was changed in powerful ways by having loved each of them.

What I’ve slowly learned is that being in love brings out something like a superpower in me. I’m a different person when I’m in love. I can achieve more. I’m a better human being. I become a finer version of myself.

I’m coming to understand that this person is who I need to be all the time. Russian novelist Anton Chekhov understood this more than most.

“Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state,” Chekhov wrote. “Being in love shows a person who he should be.”


Being in love has shown me who I need to be. It has shown me the best that I can become.

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Dishonest people have no incentive to pay rent right now. Why? Because landlords in the U.S. are powerless to do anything about freeloaders.

Let me tell you a story. I won’t mention any names, but I know the case very well. I could point you to the case file at the county courthouse in Birmingham, but it’s a story that’s playing out all over the country.

A woman moved into an apartment last fall. She had a good job that generated plenty of income to pay for the home. But after about three months, she stopped paying rent. For six months, she hasn’t paid a nickel.

She still has her job. She won’t respond to collection efforts. She managed to get herself arrested on drug charges during the winter. The only response she ever made to collection attempts was to send a form letter from the CDC claiming she’s been affected by COVID-19 — she doesn’t have to prove it — so she doesn’t have to pay right now.

And today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that property owners can’t do anything about this. The people who thought they owned property have discovered they have no right to their property — all because a bureaucrat issued a piece of worthless paper.

This is theft.

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