My path crossed Celeste's twenty-five years ago in Paris, she was visiting a French friend of a friend of mine.
Celeste had been in the antique business, traveled the world, made a fortune, put a new twist to "been there done that" and had decided at fifty years old to give it all up, and travel the world instead to find true meaning and happiness.
When I met her she was already a world traveler, with enough stories in her pockets to make Marco Polo look like a homebody. Celeste was looking for a new home to put in roots. She thought France could be the place…
Though she had plans to visit Thailand, and was going to return to Paris in the summer.
Summer came and went.
Celeste wrote that she was volunteering at an Orphanage in Thailand. Children for one reason or another who had no families. The children were babies to five years old.
Filling called to stay and help out at the orphanage, she lived there in a small room next to the laundry. She gave up her glamorous life, her expensive cars, business dinners, and cocktails to wash babies and tend to their needs at the orphanage where she did not speak their language.
Celeste stayed at the orphanage and adopted a little girl with health problems.
Every year Celeste asked me to come to visit, every year I thought, hoped and wanted to… but every year life's responsibilities detoured my best-laid plans.
Celeste stayed on in Chiang Mai, and is very active in fundraising for the "Home for Babies". Celeste's apartment is a collection of her travels, antiques, and photos of her encounters.
Thailand style interior. Natural, soothing, a terrace with plants, bamboo mats, Budda's, raw silks and linens.
Twenty-five years later, I finally made it to Thailand to visit Celeste.
We are staying at a guesthouse down the road from her apartment called: Mountain View.
Today we are going to go visit the "Home for Babies."
When I mentioned this to Chelsea she said, "Mom, Dad are you sure? Do you know how you are? Do you really think you can go visit and not feel the need to do something? Are you ready to adopt? You know, you are going to want to take every child home."
We will see. I am sure it will be difficult to walk away without bringing a child home. But I cannot imagine not going and seeing for myself that which brought such joy to Celeste, that which made her give up everything to live a life for "the little ones".
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