Every story has a beginning, but not every beginning tells the whole story 

I remember 1985  and 1987 as if it were yesterday.

 The air was heavy, thick with the kind of silence that warns you something is about to break. One moment I was just a boy, playing with other children with nothing but laughter in my chest. The next, I stood frozen, watching a scene of rage between my mothers unfold that would mark me for life, as I would be latter shipped and dumped in Nigeria. 

I did not prepare for these. There are some  kind of moment you cannot prepare for.

 There are no rehearsals for sudden loss, no script for the moment innocence slips quietly out of your hands. What I saw, and felt, on that day and its sequel planted a seed of awareness that life is fragile, unpredictable, and yet strangely held together by something greater than us.

Looking back now, I see that day not only as an ending, but also as a beginning. A beginning of faith. Of resilience. Of a hunger to make meaning out of memory.

We all have a “day that changed everything.” Sometimes it arrives like thunder, other times like a whisper that only makes sense years later. Mine taught me that while we don’t always get to choose our storms, we do get to choose how we rise after them.

Today, I invite you to pause and reflect:

  What was your day that changed everything? What did it take from you, and what did it give back in return?

Because hidden inside that one day is often the story we are meant to carry forward.

Until next time,

Anselm