The Ronaissance

The Ronaissance

The Hardest Compliment

Ron Stempkowski's avatar
Ron Stempkowski
Aug 20, 2026
∙ Paid

I was walking Hudson in our favorite park the other day when my phone buzzed.

It was a friend. He said he’d been thinking about me and my book a lot lately, and then he told me why. A family member—someone the whole family orbits, someone they idolize—had been fighting an illness for over a year. The word terminal had entered the conversation. He and his…

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