Fontana delivered this line near the end of her speech, after describing how losing her husband on 9/11 had changed her fundamentally. Rather than breaking her, the grief had 'made me try to walk in other shoes, show more compassion and humility.' She believed more than ever in social justice, and losing Dave had made her 'fearless and care less about what others think.' The statement was not a platitude from someone who had read about suffering — it came from a woman who had lived through the most public tragedy in American history and emerged with a deeper understanding of what matters. She described watching the facades of people fall away after 9/11 as 'scared and humbled, people called to action the very best of themselves.' Children sent teddy bears and taped their allowances to pieces of paper. Fontana acknowledged she was 'a work in progress' who would make many mistakes. But the wounds — Dave's death, the grief, the loneliness — had taught her more than any classroom ever could. For law students at a school that prized accepting the 'whole person,' the message was that their own wounds and struggles were not liabilities but qualifications.