details and life changing events

i heard a speaker here in houston who gave a wonderful opening speech at the POCC (people of color conference). 

her name is helene cooper and she is the white house correspondent for the NY Times. apart from her incredible current and past jobs (diplomatic correspondent, foreign correspondent) she has had an unbelievable life. having fled liberia as a young girl after seeing her family killed, she is a survivor. 

but in her talk to nearly four thousand people at the conference she chose to talk about details. she talked about how the details of her writing, are what made it compelling for her readers. (she was the one that wrote the coverage in the situation room when osama bin laden was shot - her touch about joe biden fingering the rosary was said to be key in describing the tension in the room).  

and she described how it was the details that she slowly started to forget from her own life in liberia. how it was the suppression of those details that led her to a breakdown, and finally a trip back, both figuratively and literally to heal those wounds.

both in her job as a reporter, and in her life as a refugee, she claims that it is in the details that we find meaning and connection. 

later in the conference we heard from kim phuc. you may know her as the girl in the pulitzer prize winning photo from the vietnam war. the photo shows her running down a dirt road away from the destruction made by a napalm balm. her clothes have burnt off of her body - and though not visible in the photo, her skin on her back and arm are burning as well. 

after becoming unconscious she was taken to the morgue. she spent three days there before her parents found her, discovered she was alive and got her treatment. 

she spent many years recovering. not only from the physical wounds which were severe, but all of the emotional and mental ones as well. she has since FORGIVEN the bombers. even spoke publicly at he vietnam memorial to do so. she could not go on with her life without finding forgiveness. i found this to be both crazy and amazing. 

overall the conference was inspirational. full of inspiring stories and thought-provoking ideas.