When you realize that living in South Africa is no longer a viable proposition.

Unless you have walked in my shoes you cannot know the overwhelming fear and anxiety when you finally realize that living in South Africa is no longer a viable proposition.

For so many years, in fact from the beginning, you have felt safe and secure in this beautiful country, the place of your birth, but now you have to pack up 72 years of both valuable and useless accumulated possessions and move.

Since all my children are citizens of America this becomes the country of my choice, specifically California. I have to leave behind all I know, life-long friends and family, a familiar culture, and a unique climate, to a place on the other side of the world, where I virtually know no-one.

All the questions churn in my mind and prevent me from sleeping. What should I take? What should I leave behind? Who will buy what I want to sell since my car, my school, and some of my art work is too large and heavy to transport. Can I afford the cost of a container and shipment and the cost to live in America, where South African money, the Rand, is 10 to a dollar!

Will I make friends or be lonely and isolated? Will I be able to live without working, something I have done all my life? At last I reach a deadline and can no longer procrastinate. To my surprise, it all falls into place and everything gets done.

Here I am having made the best decision I could ever have made. I am challenged and involved in so many activities, finding hidden talents, but most importantly, making special friends who have become my new, valued and dear family.