Death is part of life, and the older I get, the more often the Pale Horseman takes those I love and cherish, family and close friends. Hardened as I might be, and contrary to what Saint Paul tells us, death, it still stings, the dying, I think, and, I know, the living. On May 4, we lost Julia Alexander, the longtime director of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, a curator at the Yale Center for British Art, a distinguished leader in the museum world, and a much beloved friend for 35 years.

Julia died at 57, suddenly, of heart failure ...