Hello Goodbye

It’s our last few hours in LA and soon we’ll be on the plane, making the 10,000 mile journey back to KL. Yesterday we took one last walk around Old Town Pasadena, passing our “old” apartment on the way. I said to Lucas – “look, that’s where we used to stay”, and as I said it, I realised that it feels like a lot longer than 3 months that we’ve been here. Even Lucas was completely silent the whole way, taking the surroundings in like he knew it would be a long time before he returns to Pasadena.

In the Accenture KL office, up on the 66th floor of the Petronas Twin Towers, there’s a quote printed on the window – “Live as though it’s your last day, dream as though you’ll live forever”. I think that’s very good advice and if we are able to experience every 3 months as though it’s a year, we will “live” for several hundred years! My dream is that I will be able to keep involved with the project, maybe even be a part of the team that realises the vision and hopefully I won’t have to live forever to do so…

The reason I was thinking of this quotation is that I received the sad news yesterday that Robert Davies, the CEO of the Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) passed away last week. I only knew Robert briefly, having been privileged to spend a week touring India and Sri Lanka with him as part of the IBLF Tsunami Task Force 2 years ago. Robert is a person who embodied this quotation – every day with him was exhausting yet exhilirating and he pushed all of us to look at the world a different way and make a positive difference. Being part of the Tsunami Task Force and meeting Robert I think planted the seed for me to do this ADP project at World Vision.

It was a perfect last day at work – the project team threw me a farewell tea party (US style with bagels and coffee) and we went to lunch at In ‘n Out – this time I got the Double Double with Animal Style fries (living like it’s my last day…). I had been wanting to participate in the World Vision Child Sponsorship program ever since I joined the project and amazingly, today in chapel there was the opportunity to sign up (a timely reminder!) so I did so right away. Lucas now has a big sister in Lebanon, her name is Mary Theresa George and she likes science…hopefully the last part will rub off on Lucas!

To all who have made our short time here such a great experience, thank you for everything you’ve done and I hope we will keep in touch. Taking my cue from the Governator – hasta la vista and we’ll be back!