Were I to offer every audience a full accounting of the present, past and future exposure to loss in my life, I would be nothing but a distraction. For one thing, these audiences have no authority in these vulnerabilities—no capacity for meaningful action to address them. Others in my life do have that authority—my supervisor, my friends, my confessors, my wife. But a hall full of strangers could only listen, with sympathy or alarm, to the reality of my—or anyone’s—broken life.
