The Flame Before Freedom
An odyssey of gray days, hidden fire, and the dream of America
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”
— Ernest Hemingway
Born Into the Gray
I was born on December 7th, 1965—early in the morning, just as the people of Bucharest were beginning another gray, punishing day under Communism. The streets were already crowded. Most didn’t own cars, so they waited for hours in bitter cold for overpacked buses, clinging to the outside doors, their bodies half-frozen, their eyes half-awake.
The dread of daily life in Romania didn’t start with the morning commute. It continued with it. We had heat in our hearts but no heat in our homes. We had no food in the grocery stores, just rows of dust and silence. No hot water. No relief from the cold. And electricity vanished with the sun, plunging us into nightly darkness where even hope seemed to flicker.
We had no freedom. No choice, just the quiet suffocation of survival. We had no identity. No voice of our own. We were nameless shadows in a system that erased individuality. We were told what to believe in, what to say, what to fear—and punished for wanting more.
We were mere mortals surviving under the weight of someone else's ideology. But even in that lifeless machinery, sparks of humanity remained. Quiet acts of love. Secret dreams whispered in the dark. The soul’s silent rebellion.
Everything was gray. The buildings. The grocery stores. The mood. The air. The future.
I was an only child, born to two hardworking parents, my mother 25, and my father, 30. They were devoted, courageous, and exhausted, living in a kind of prison that didn’t have bars, but rules. Rules that told you when to speak, how to think, what you could eat, if you could find it, and what you could dream about—basically, nothing!
The Farm, the Radio, and the Fireflies
At just 4 months old, I was sent to live with my grandmother outside of Bucharest while my mother struggled with illness. Life on the small farm was harsh—no bathroom, no running water—but I was free.
Free to play with fireflies. Free to listen to the radio for hours. Free to learn from the most evolved, intuitive woman I’ve ever met: my grandmother.
She couldn’t read or write, yet she lived in harmony with the seasons, the land, the animals. Her nutrition and lifestyle were what doctors today call “optimal living.” To me, she was a goddess disguised as a peasant woman. She taught me presence, simplicity, love, and resilience.
Even amid the trauma of an abusive uncle and the death of a cousin under tragic circumstances, she protected me. She loved me unconditionally. That love was my anchor.
Life on the farm moved with the rhythm of the earth—its own sacred cadence, shaped by the turning of the seasons. It was hard. It was raw. And it was miraculous. That farm world—brutal yet beautiful—became my first teacher.
The Invisible Illness
I was a sickly child. No one really knew what was silently stealing my strength-only that I had trouble breathing, that I was fragile, tired, too quiet, always cold. The doctors said it was asthma but offered no real help. Years later, they would discover the truth: I had been born with a heart defect.
Throughout my childhood, I carried that hidden wound, misunderstood by everyone around me. People said I was difficult. Sensitive. Picky. Even my mother believed it. But how could I explain what I didn’t understand myself? The exhaustion, the weakness, the way my body felt like it couldn’t quite catch up to life.
And yet, even with a broken heart, I dreamed anyway. It was the only soul nourishment. I wanted to believe that what Paulo Coelho wrote in The Alchemist was true:
“when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
Even in the grayest corners of Communism, that idea felt like a lifeline — a promise whispered to my soul when everything else was silent.
Maybe it was my body’s frailty that made my spirit stronger. Maybe, because I was seen as weak, I learned to find power in silence, watching, feeling, sensing everything more deeply. Maybe, unknowingly, I was preparing for the life I would one day create.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”
— Helen Keller
After I was born, and throughout my childhood, my mother was often sick—or believed she was. What I later understood is that hypochondria can be a disease not just of the body, but of the soul, a quiet scream for care, for meaning, for escape.
And somehow, later also, when I needed the most, knowing that fact made the ache of abandonment more bearable. Not easier. Just… survivable.
My North Star
By contrast, my father was my North Star. He never went to college. He didn’t need to. He was self-taught, self-made, and brilliant. An aviation mechanic, a philosopher, an artist with tools. He could build anything: a house, a motor, a car, an airplane, a life. If he had been born in America, he might have been the next Nikola Tesla.
He taught me discipline. He made me rewrite my school notebooks until they were perfect. One set for practice, another for beauty. He took me to museums, to markets, to forests, to the zoo. We went fishing. We created cosmic memories. He taught me to see the world not just as it was, but as it could be. He adored me. And I adored him.
Becoming an “American”
When I was five years old and someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I answered confidently: “I want to be an American.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew it was freedom. I knew it was possibility. I knew it was the opposite of gray. My grandfather, a WWII prisoner of war, had told me for years:
“The Americans will come. They will save us. They will free us from the Russians.”
He said it so often, I believed it with all my soul.
So I kept saying it. Even when I learned that “American” wasn’t a job, I kept saying it. It made people laugh. It made me believe.
And that belief became fire.
Education: My First Escape Plan
At age 7, I returned to Bucharest for school. Suddenly, I was expected to sit still, wear a uniform, raise my hand, keep my arms behind my back. But I had been raised in nature. I was wild and curious. I asked too many questions.
It did not take me long to understand the game. And because I excelled, I was placed with Romania’s best teachers. I thrived. Books became my toys. I had one doll—but shelves of stories. And somewhere in those pages, I found my passport to freedom.
Authors like Mircea Eliade, Mihai Eminescu, and Jules Verne carried me away from the gray walls. Later, American writers like Mark Twain, Thoreau, Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Whitman whispered from across the ocean: You belong here. You’re one of us.
And so I believed it. Even when there was no food in the fridge. Even when a joke about Ceausescu could get you imprisoned. Even when there was no heat, no hot water, no dreams allowed.
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
— Nelson Mandela
Fruits Worth Hours
I want to give you a snapshot of our daily life in communist Romania. My mom used to wait in line for hours—yes, hours—just to get me a green banana and an orange for Christmas. I didn’t even know bananas were supposed to be yellow until years later.
While growing up and going to school in Bucharest, every summer I returned for three full months to my little paradise, dissolving into nature like a drop into a river. I breathed in the scent of sun-warmed hay. I traced the silent drift of clouds across the sky. I read endlessly, sometimes just to be lost in the magic of words. I played with insects, chased butterflies, plucked fruit straight from the trees, and tended to animals and soil as if both could feel my care.
I witnessed birth—baby calves and piglets blinking into life. I witnessed death—majestic horses falling into the earth that once carried them. From a tender age, I was learning the twin truths of existence: everything ends. And everything begins again.
That summer world, both brutal and beautiful, carved itself into the deepest part of me.
One book, The Most Beloved of Earthly Beings by Marin Preda, a Romanian writer, branded two unforgettable truths into my soul:
“Death is a simple phenomenon in nature—only humans make it terrifying.”
“Where there is no love, there is nothing.”
The Love That Lit the Way
Then came Tudor. I met him through his mother—I was her dental assistant. At first, we were just friends sharing something electric: hunger for more. A dream to come to America.
That shared vision turned into love. And that love turned into partnership.
We studied English together for three years. We worked, saved every penny, and studied day and night. We knew that America was about competition—and being the best. We trained relentlessly, hoping that one day… a miracle would arrive.
Tudor was in medical school; I was studying economics. I was dreaming of Columbia University. We were young, in love, driven, and unstoppable.
We dreamed in unison. We worked in harmony. We studied side-by-side, day in and day out, year after year. People said we were role models. They wanted what we had.
And the most incredible thing is: We made it all happen. Residency in Anesthesiology. Columbia. Kids born in America. A life we dreamed of on cold, gray nights in Bucharest.
Closing Reflection
As you can see, the fire inside me didn’t start in America. It started in the dark. In the cold. In the hunger. It started in a country that tried to kill dreams—and accidentally raised a dreamer instead.
I am who I am because of Romania. And I became who I was meant to be because of what Romania taught me to overcome.
This was the fire before the flight. When I came to America it was my very first experience of traveling by plane, my first “FLIGHT”, I was 30. This is the story of how a little girl who wanted to be an American… became one.
Lessons I Learned
A dream is a rebellion against the limits we were born into.
Freedom begins in the mind long before it arrives in life.
The earth raised me as much as any human did. The Universe shows up when nobody does.
The farm taught me: Life is fleeting, love fiercely.
Books were my wings that took me far. In a world without freedom, books became my open sky.
Loss taught me more about life than gain ever could.
Invitation to Dream Beyond the Gray
If my story stirred something in you—an ember you’ve carried quietly through your own gray days—maybe this is your time to fan it into flame.
Ask yourself:
What dream have I buried that still breathes within me?
Where have I accepted limits that no longer belong to me?
What step can I take today to choose color over gray?
Write your answers. Act on one. Watch how even the smallest spark can light a horizon.
If you’re ready to design a life beyond survival, DM me the word FREEDOM. I’ll personally share the first step of my Live by Design coaching framework and walk beside you as you reclaim your flame.
Life is too sacred to live in gray. Let’s ignite your fire together.
Until the next horizon,
Coach • Traveler • Believer in Intentional Living
