From March 14, 2022

Today would have been my brother Bill’s 87th birthday. He died on November 7, 2005; he was 70 years old. I was fortunate enough to have been in New York City on the weekend of his death from lung cancer. I was giving a daylong retreat sponsored by the Thomas Merton Society at Corpus Christi Church on 121st Street in the upper westside of Manhattan where Thomas Merton was baptized. At lunch, I received a phone call from my nephew Billy informing me that his father was slipping away.