The year was 1994. I was in the book store with my children. I read an article about Mother Meera, an Indian sage and healer. The writer had traveled to Germany to experience her power. She told him he didn’t have to leave his home. All he needed to do was ask. I wonder if you can help me, Mother Meera.

I walked to the back of the store. My son had selected three books, my daughter two. They were still looking. I walked over to a shelf and noticed an interesting title. I reached down, pulled the book out, opened it, read a few lines. My eyes began to tear up. I looked at the cover. It was not the book I selected. I’d never done that before. It was an unlikely title, The Alchemist, by an author I’d never heard of, Paulo Coelho.

The words that brought tears to my eyes, that I apparently needed to hear at that moment:

My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer, the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky. Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams.