“Everything works out in the end. if it hasn't worked out yet, then it's not the end.” ― Tracy McMillan On a cold winter’s day last February, I found myself roaming around the grassy cemetery of an ancient English church. The tiny village with thatched roofs kept careful watch. White snowdrops thrown like magic carpets by a ghost gave me a profound sense of hope and joy in this green grassy corner of the world. Ancient burial stones tumbled, lopsided and barely appearing from moss covered mounds were everywhere. A jumble of death. In the midst of this a tall stone monument stood on a plinth, newer, built in 1922 and erected in memory of those who died in WWI. The sign read “as there was no repatriation of bodies during the war, it was important for the villagers to have somewhere to come and remember the fallen”. Heavens to Betsy! I was struck by the word “ repatriation” and the sense of loss. I imagined the village looking for their loved
Orly airport, outside of Paris, France. A lonely, scared 22-year-old sat on a bench feeling like she had just made the biggest mistake of her life. Distraught, she barely heard the last and final call for her flight to Yaounde, Cameroon, West Africa. She bolted into action and ran like the wind towards a future unknown and unraveled. On that journey to my first overseas assignment in Cameroon, I felt like I had signed away my life to the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, trading breath itself in exchange for adventure. Growing up in and around Glasgow, Scotland I had up until that point lived a delightfully provincial, charming, yet small life. Burning in my bones was this idea that there must be “more." But more what? more travel, more freedom, more choices? I just knew something was impelling me forward. I wish that I knew what I know now, When I was younger, I wish that I knew wha