Unknown Stories

My grandmother, aunt, mother, sister, and I had fled Vietnam during the war and ended up in America as refugees.  I met my father for the first time when I was 20.   I found that it was more than the war and geography that separated my father and I on my subsequent visits.  There was language, culture, and age as barriers.  I grew up on a single story of my father, a romanticized vision.  He was prince charming. The reality is something I will never truly get to know, but I know there is more to him than the ideal that he is a knight in shining armour.  With all of the turmoil that faces us in the media these days, I want to remind you that there is more than one story, you just have to be willing to see it and to hear it. We have depth and dimension and I would encourage you to discover it about each other.  I try to listen for the unspoken stories and to know my clients beyond what is initially presented. I believe that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explains the danger of a single story well in her TED Talk.