THE BEST VERSION OF ME

Christal

Here is her story...

The best thing that ever happened to me was that my life fell apart.  

Six and a half years ago I was wandering around a tiny village in the Caribbean with a picture of a little girl and myself. She was a familiar little life to me as I had spent quite a bit of time with her and her mother. I was trying to find out what had happened to her after her mother had passed away the year before from the brutal effects of poverty.

I had a picture of the two of us from the previous year when I had been working there with the charity that I co-founded, Live Different. I was leading teams of volunteers from Canada that had joined us to work alongside some incredible people in a garbage dump in the local area. The people we were helping were desperately poor, caught in the cycles of survival that plagues over half of the world’s population. I had made so many friends and had so many memorable experiences with beautiful people that each year, when our time there was done, I was never ready to return to my other life back in Canada. 

But this summer would change everything.

Now I was doing more than just leading teams of volunteers who were building houses and helping with the daily workload in the community. Now I was walking around this village intent on finding out if this little girl was okay.

I was also intent on trying to find out if my husband and I could adopt her. 

Through sheer serendipity, I found myself sitting a few minutes later in a tiny hut. It had a bare cement floor and we sat on broken backed resin chairs around a rickety table. The lady I was across from was the grandmother of the little girl whose picture I had. 

There was a heavy silence in the air because of what was being weighed and considered.

I had just asked the unthinkable question of this woman and was waiting for the answer as she stared at the floor. 

I felt as if my own heart would stop. I was so nervous that I had just offended her and that I had made a horrible mistake. I had just asked her if she would help me adopt the little girl in the picture that I was holding of her and me. 

And now it felt as if all of my life’s future history was hanging in the balance. 

Finally, she looked up from the floor and stared directly into my eyes. She spoke in short, stilted  sentences to the translator. 

As he turned to me to explain what she had just said to him in Creole, I was not prepared for what I would find out. 

He looked me in the eye and said, “She says that she thinks it’s a good idea if her granddaughter goes with you. Because, if she goes with you to Canada, she won’t die like her mother."

I was stunned. 

There was almost nothing left to say. It had all been said right there. 

I had lost my brother a few years earlier in a workplace accident. He was 20 and he died trying to save someone else. I had known grief and pain in many areas of my own life. As I looked in her eyes, I felt the conflicting emotions of loss and hope that so much of the world wrestles with each and every day. 

We were now linked in a way that couldn’t be undone. 

The process began the next day. I was stunned and had to re-adjust my own life and priorities along the way as well. The journey has not been a romantic one in the least. It has taken every twist and turn imaginable: divorce, earthquakes, financial destruction and loss of relationships because of things beyond my control. 

To this day, six and a half years later, I still cannot get my daughter to Canada full time. I commute every two weeks between Toronto and Dominican Republic just to be able to both be with her and create a business that will sustain us. 

But not once have I ever regretted saying yes to the unknowns of love and commitment.

The best thing that ever happened to me was that my life fell apart without my permission; I have learned that I never controlled it anyways. 

In fact, the only thing I have ever truly been in control of was who I will choose to be, each and every day.

For the sake of my daughter, the people I serve in my business and life and for the sake of the collective future of the world I am a part of, I choose to be the best version of me. 

Your Brilliance Unlimited - http://yourbrillianceunlimited.com/

Book 1 – Resonate: The Stories We Tell Ourselves -  http://yourbrillianceunlimited.com/resonate-book/

Book 2 – Transform Your Life Story - http://yourbrillianceunlimited.com/things-get-sweeter/