The Best of Wanderlust (A GeoEx eBook)

The Best of Wanderlust

An Epiphany in India

murmured. “It was a girl. Who wants a girl?” Sirinder replied with a shrug. There are stories that have the power to heal. What happened that day beneath the acacia tree loosened the knot that had been choking me, cleaned away the cobwebs of self- pity, and forced me to come back to the world and transform the loss of my daughter into action. I could not save that baby girl or her desperate mother or millions of women like her, but I could at least attempt to ease the lot in life of some of them. I had an account with untouched savings that I was planning to invest in something that would make Paula proud. In that moment I remembered that when she was alive I would often call her for advice—my life as a new immigrant in the US and as stepmother of Willie’s drug-addicted children was rather stressful—and her answer would always come in the form of a question: “Mother, what is the most generous thing to do in this case?” “Now I know what to do with my savings,” I announced to Willie and Tabra. “I will start a foundation to help women and children.” And so I did as soon as we returned to California, never imagining that through the years, that seed would become a large tree, like the acacia. Isabel Allende is an acclaimed novelist, memoirist, and humanitarian. Her books include The House of the Spirits , Eva Luna , Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses , The Sum of Our Days , My Invented Country , Paula , A Long Petal of the Sea , The Soul of a Woman , and her latest, Violeta . She has also written an adventure trilogy for young readers— City of the Beasts , Kingdom of the Golden Dragon , and Forest of the Pygmies . The Isabel Allende Foundation works with nonprofits in the San Francisco * * * * *

Bay Area and Chile to empower and protect women and girls, based on the understanding that empowering women is the only true route to social and economic justice.

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