But on another scale, the decisions individuals make about their private lives, like a young girl’s demand that she be taken to school in defiance of prevailing cultural norms, also have surprising—and long-lasting—consequences.

They would open conversations about her with “You know your mother was the first woman to…” Then they would conjure a character so fiercely determined, so independent, I had trouble reconciling it with the mild, uncomplaining mother who slept in the bedroom next to mine.

maybe? I didn’t know. I also didn’t know what the cost of taking that road would be, that it would mean twenty years of missed weddings, missed birthdays, missed funerals. Twenty years of sleeping on planes and perpetual jet lag. Twenty years of praying alone in strange hotel rooms and being the lone person fasting during Ramadan at official

“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”

While I had always found great personal reward in doing my job, and my job always came first, so much in my professional environment was uncertain. Anthony’s very presence was the opposite—he was uncertain about nothing. He became my rock.

That fork in the road, a quarter of a century ago, when I left a family wedding to embark on the great unknown, turned into the most unexpected journey, the next step in a path my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother had cleared for me. It took me to a place that was worth every ounce of effort, commitment, and sacrifice required to get

The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism. —Wole Soyinka

As always, the work required a balance between putting out geopolitical fires as they arose and devising a proactive agenda that year focused on, among other things, human rights, climate change, and strengthening ties with our allies.

Though a lover of history, my father rarely spoke of his own past.