Wallace Law PLLC

My Why

Let me tell you a story.  

There's this boy, about 12 or so.  He's growing up in this historic New England seaport that sits on a big river that opens onto the Atlantic ocean. Different times.

And not far from that river, right off the town square, across from the big old North Church on the other side, sits a popular restaurant -- Jarvis's place.  Anyway, this boy's running errands with his mother.  Beautiful day, and he'd frankly rather be playing ball, doing almost anything else really.

And then it happens; this ultimately haunting thing occurs.  Jarvis's place is not only a popular restaurant, but a bus stop as well. Greyhound (leave the driving to us).  This old man finally, and slowly, gets off the bus.  He's struggling with a suitcase.

Kid and his mother were standing nearby, watching the old man.  And then his mother, my mother, says, "David, you help that man.  And don't take any money for it."  With a sense of shame, I say, "Yes, ma'am."  Old man tells my mother he's staying at a hotel, two blocks or so away.  So, I wrestle a grip on this suitcase, and fall in behind him.

I say I feel shame, because there's this group of older boys nearby, laughing at the old man, who happens to be wearing a winter topcoat on a very warm day.  And as I look up, at the old man's back, I see a piece of yellow paper stuck there.  It says, "Kick me."  My mind races as we approach the old man's hotel, about what to do.  Not what I should do, that much is clear.  But whether I have the guts to interfere with the practical joke being played on this unsuspecting man, by boys quite a bit older than I am.

And then it happens.  I say nothing.  I put the old man's suitcase down on the sidewalk outside his hotel, he turns to thank me, and then I leave.  I say nothing.  I leave the old man with a note stuck to his back saying, "Kick me," and I head back to Jarvis's place looking for my mother. I was scared.  I felt shamed.  I showed no empathy.  I said and did nothing.  I did not stand up for that old man, a fellow human . . . out of fear.

And right there, in that moment, was a lesson for me.  It was one I didn't uncover until many years later, by then an old man myself.  Glad, though, I finally did.  Here it is:  Everyone we meet in life is our teacher.  That old man, that experience, was a teaching moment.   

So now, I begin every case I choose to take, every journey I take with a client, from this place called personhood.  And we head out together to this place called Justice, where people just like us go to resolve legal disputes, and hopefully get on again with real life.  And in that process, I bring your story to life, I give it wings.  

And that old man?  He's the reason there's a piece of me in every story that another person trusts me enough to tell on for them. They're never alone in those moments.  Because I'm their warrior.