It was raining when Mark offered to share his umbrella with Becca nine years ago. He says he didn’t have any other motivation, but Becca smiled Friday night when they told me the story.
“I don’t know what he was really thinking,” she said, “but I’m glad he took the chance.”
I met Mark and Becca — along with their two young children — at a restaurant. Their two daughters attracted my attention first. Their animated games of make-believe made me smile and I was soon chatting with their parents.
They live in Portland, Ore., now, but Birmingham will always be special to them. It was a twist of fate — like something out of a romantic movie — that brought them together in the rain one evening nine years ago.
Becca was a 26-year-old lawyer at her father’s Philadelphia law firm. She’s an only child and her dad had always wanted her to take over his law practice one day. He had planned her life. He sent her to Yale for her undergraduate degree and Georgetown for law school. She had been working at the firm for a bit more than a year, but her dad told anybody who would listen that she would eventually take over for him.
Taxing ‘the rich’ to fix economic problems shortsighted, won’t work
Years later, I see that I was an outsider who could never fit in
Though it’s helpful to have talent, that won’t guarantee success
Society needs storytellers to help make sense of a changing world
Watching kids on a Friday night reminds me of struggle to belong
What if other people see you or hear you differently than you do?
Film hurts when I hear, ‘I’ve seen what we can be like together’
I lost my way that night — and it seems I never found my way back
Smallest ray of hope can make us feel a change we need is coming