"Banging on those doors, wearing down the forces of inertia until they cave" -Philip B

Steve, Darrow, Rebecca, and the rest of the huge Vanessa community,

I have racked my brain for these several weeks trying to think of how to describe how I felt about Vanessa's retirement from Pace. I made no progress beyond schmaltzy dreck that made even me nauseous until I came across this quote from Jon Stewart:
“ ... The work of making this world resemble one you’d prefer to live in is a lunch pail f*cking job, day in and day out, where thousands of anonymous, smart, and dedicated people bang on closed doors and pick up those who have fallen and grind away on issues until they get positive results, and even then, they have to stay on to make sure those results hold.”

Thank you Vanessa for being an example to generations of us of how one can live banging on those doors, wearing down the forces of inertia until they cave and then maintaining the eternal vigilance necessary to make sure the results stick all while maintaining a sense of humor and positive upbeat attitude. You exemplified for so many of us the ability to celebrate the small victories, even in the face of the daunting odds, necessary sacrifices, too frequent failures, and the picking oneself up to fight on.

Thank you for your modeling how to be an attorney with generosity, kindness and compassion.

And thank you Steve, Darrow and Rebecca for your generously sharing so much of Vanessa with us.

So, still schmaltzy dreck, but better than it otherwise would have been ;-)

Philip B