In case you don’t speak English with a thick Czech accent, I’ll translate for you: We are the lucky ones.

There’s a story behind this, maybe two. At least two. It begins with Julie, my across-the-street neighbor when I lived on Inverness Way. Julie was, as a bar-hopping buddy of hers attested, a man magnet. And a joyous reader, conversationalist and people person. She was also an avid but peripatetic gardener, in constant motion in…