As I continue my mission to retrace the last days of Dian Fossey in my upcoming book, Voices from the Mist, an underlying theme keeps surfacing. Dian experienced trauma during childhood, as many of us have. She felt betrayed by those who were supposed to love and protect her. Awareness of the source of our trauma gives us the opportunity to make more healthy choices. There is a process of recovery. I've learned how to become aware of trauma, choose my response to it, and manage it.

Writing Voices from the Mist: The Last Days of Dian Fossey (working title) has taken me on an unexpected journey of self-awareness and healing. I’ve learned more about myself in the last year than in the first six decades of my life. It takes awareness of a childhood trauma to begin to heal. Some of us become aware later than others.

Today, I want to talk about the importance of dreams. Rather than encourage Dian to follow her dream of studying gorillas in Africa, her parents discouraged it.

One key to happiness is to always have something to look forward to. For me, it’s exotic travel and helping animals. Once I decide what I’m going to do, like the Nike slogan, I “Just Do It.”

My husband David and my love of animals and primates, in particular, led us down the path to become friends with Dian Fossey. We’d volunteered with Biruté Galdikas, Dian’s colleague, in Borneo in July of 1984 and loved it.

I'm retracing my steps with my friend Dian Fossey, whose passion for mountain gorillas led to their narrow escape from extinction. Dian had childhood aspirations of becoming a veterinarian; however, early academic struggles transformed her dream into a legendary one. Her deep-seated desire to help animals is one of the most remarkable modern-day species survival accounts we have.