You don’t have a choice, when you are born in war torn Europe in 1940.
Your choices in life become quite minimal, as a toddler, knowing your father has gone never to return, and watching your mother do the best she can with what means she has available to her.
You don’t have a choice, when your teachers just move you from class to class knowing you will never reach you full academic potential, when you have lived the most important milestone years hidden in a monastery for your protection and safety.
You don’t have a choice, when you see your friends taking the next step in their lives and one by one begin to marry and dowries being given, and knowing you will never be able to afford such things.
You don’t have a choice, when you have worked hard on the tobacco fields, and the buyer does not pay you for your labour.
Fiona on her wedding day. Source: Supplied
And then someone comes up to you, out of the blue, and actually says to you there is someone for you on the other side of the world. You turn your head to look and think I may now have a choice.
You embark on one of the biggest adventures of your life and board a ship to sail to the other side of the world.
Twenty odd days on a ship and you have a lot of time to think about your choices. Is it too late to turn back? What will the others back home think of me? I don’t know what I was thinking, until you have made yourself very ill with all these thoughts.
You arrive and step down off the plane and a few months have past, and you can buy a dress, shoes, and you have a good man beside you.
Now it was your choice, and it was that choice, and a lot of prayers and luck, and for the first time ever, the choice you made was the right choice to change the direction of your life.
This is the story that my mother would tell us. She made sure that her three daughters had a choice, that is, their own choice. Be strong, and don’t let others tell you what to do, or how to do it, and work hard so you can always be independent.
