(Reprinted from June 2021, epilogue added)

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Last night I took the shortcut home, and it changed my life.

Carrying six heavy glass bottles of water, I walked through the alley behind our home. There I saw a thin elderly lady less than five feet tall, bending over pulling weeds from between the cobblestones. “I pull these weeds”, she explained, “so that this alley will be clean. No one else w...