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Posts by Stephen Rowley

Stephen Rowley, PhD, is a psychotherapist practicing on Bainbridge Island, Washington. He has been a schoolteacher, principal, and a school district superintendent in Washington State and California. He holds a PhD in Administration and Policy Analysis from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education and an MA in Counseling Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. He is the author of The Lost Coin: A Memoir of Adoption and Destiny(2023). Visit https://stephenrowley108.com/ for more about his psychotherapy practice and new book.

Stephen Rowley's Website

The Simple, Old-School Acts of Kindness Our World Badly Needs

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“Whatever is in memory is also in soul.” ~Saint Augustine, Confessions

Memories of my father are etched deeply in me—not for what he accomplished as a surgeon, a pilot, and an outdoorsman, but for what he was about, a truly gentle and generous man. Ironically, one of the most important lessons I learned from and about him came from a stranger.

I was alone in my family’s large Victorian-style house in the heart of the Midwest on a muggy Saturday afternoon. My mother had taken my siblings to a summer reading program at the public library, and my dad had …