My name is Moriah Freeman.  I’m a retired executive assistant who worked at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, for 25 years.  Before that, I spent 11 years as a nun, and before that, I worked as a missionary. Since my retirement nine years ago, I have spent much time reflecting on my career, my life and responsibilities outside of work, my relationships, the American society in which I live, and my beliefs about what is true, good, loving, and just.

In all my reflections, the theme of “respect” has repeatedly come up. I have decided to blog to share some of my thoughts about respect and invite conversation about this topic.

Please join me in this conversation about respect. We have much to learn from each other. I hope my thoughts will stimulate yours, and I expect yours will challenge mine and broaden my perspective.

January 24, 2025, was the eighth anniversary of With All Due Respect’s launch. I certainly did not envision many of the topics these posts would cover eight years ago. I am grateful to all those who read and sometimes comment and those who tell me they have also been thinking about the same topics I have been addressing.

More than ever, we need a culture of respect in this country and worldwide. Thank you, everyone, for each respectful word and deed.

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Biography

Moriah Freeman began writing for the pure joy of it after retirement at 64. However, she has always embraced the challenge of expressing herself truthfully and beautifully in both spoken and written communication. An aspiring writer since high school and an avid journaler for over forty years, she journaled through bible smuggling adventures in communist Eastern Europe in her twenties and convent life as a nun in her thirties. After that, she practiced business writing during a twenty-five-year career as an administrator at Harvard University.

In January 2017, she launched her blog With All Due Respect, [https://withallsuerespect.blog,] posting on issues of respect in everyday life. She self-published her first book in April 2021 through Kindle Direct Publishing. I’ve Got Your Back: Respecting the Irreplaceable Executive Assistant draws on her many years of administrative experience in higher education.

In May 2024, she published her first novel, The Blue Room. She is currently working on her second, which deals with the issue of ageism and takes place in a retirement community. In May 2025, she published her first collection of poetry, You Can’t Get Blood From a Turnip and Other Poems.

Originally from Nova Scotia, Canada, but now an American citizen, Moriah has lived in Ottawa, Canada, Chicago, Illinois, and Lincoln and Maynard, Massachusetts. She completed a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in History at Acadia University in Nova Scotia and a Master’s in Russian History at Carleton University in Ottawa. She now lives in Brunswick, Maine, with her spouse, certified therapy dog, and two cats, one an exquisite Maine Coon. Besides writing, she enjoys gardening, meditation, swimming, hospice volunteering, and photography.

Moriah loves the ocean, solitude, creating personalized greeting cards with her photos, drawing and coloring mandalas, and finding precise and evocative words to convey her thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Her most profound hope for her writing is that her readers experience moments of intimacy with themselves and her characters that nurture insight and transformation.