1/4 Full

  

My happiest and most rewarding job was covering credit unions internationally especially when it took me to Warsaw, Paris, Dublin and other interesting places.

I often thought of my best friend's father shaking his head and calling me the "Little Girl From Reading who talks to world leaders."

None of them will remember me of course, and compared to major media reporters who must think sitting down with the U.K.'s prime minister is just another ho hum day. 

As part of covering the World Council of Credit Union (WOCCU)'s annual conference, I was able to interview the key note speakers, often current or former national and international leaders.

One, Mary Robinson, former Irish President and former Secretary General of the High Commission of Refugees (HCR), has influenced my thinking sometimes daily.

Robinson and I lived in Geneva at the same time. My office was across the street from HCR. I never talked with her there, but maybe we ate in the HCR cafeteria, the best of the alphabet UN agencies in the area. Maybe we shopped for groceries at the same time in the Co-op nestled among the agencies. 

"You have ten minutes," I was told as I was ushered into a conference room. Robinson, tall and lovely, was already there. She believed in credit unions, which had made a major difference to the lives of Irish citizens.

Ten minutes had passed. I had what I needed for my story, but I hated to end the session. I mentioned we'd live in Geneva at the same time. I knew she'd left HCR and her work helping those who were so desperate and who had no voice, citing it was U.S. pressure.

We continued chatting until we came to Rwanda, which she visited after the genocide and the horror still apparent well after.

"How did you do it?" I asked her, thinking of all the horrors she'd seen during her travels.

She reached across the table and put her hand on mine and said in her musical Irish accent, "My Dear, to me the glass is always a quarter full."

There was a knock in the door. She'd given me more than a half hour, not ten minutes. Later she introduced me to her husband. She, unlike almost every other keynote speaker, had stayed for the entire conference "to learn." 

The 1/4 glass remark gets me thru the day, stopping the gut-wrenching news from my birth country in the middle of self-destruction, Gaza genocide, Ukrainian bombings. I watch the hypocritical politicians and hear lie after lie.

Then I remember my life is 1/4 full living in France and Switzerland. I have enough food, often fresh from local gardens, time to sit in tea rooms and chat with friends. My two flats are warm, comfy and even color co-ordinated. The chimes on the patio sing in a wind. No bombs fall on me. My marriage adds a joy to my life. 

It's a lucky accident of birth and circumstances that I have what I have. All those things, fill my glass a quarter full but I can't stop caring about the other 3/4s. If only I could do more.