Living the Dream, Then Dying for It

(NY Times, August 7, 2018. Story by Rakmini Callimachi)

With so much bad news in abundance, I was recently drawn to an article in the New York Times about a young American couple who decided to take a “gap year” from their very busy lives to experience “living in real time.” Both very accomplished Georgetown graduates, they met, fell in love, and began to share a dream. Some say she was very influenced by his lifestyle of global wandering and living on the edge. Others might say they were a perfect match to pursue their dream together.

FRANCE Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan began their trip in July 2017. They reached Europe in December.CreditSimplycycling.org

I was hooked on their story. Their dream was to wander the globe to experience the goodness of humanity.

“There’s magic out there, in this great big beautiful world,” wrote Jay Austin who, along with his partner, Lauren Geoghegan, gave his two weeks’ notice last year before shipping his bicycle to Africa.

Their story struck a very deep chord in me since I have a son who has very similar aspirations.  A graduate of the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, he has also wandered off the grid alone on several occasions in the Middle East, Africa and Europe.  He has that gene that provokes him to explore and have experiences that the more timid among us can only imagine.

As his mother, I first experienced this genetic disposition when he was 16 and made a serious argument to me and his Dad for going to Africa to visit the camp of a young researcher (and his wife and child) to study the wild dog population of the Okavanga Delta in Botswana, Africa. Eventually I agreed for several reasons: He was a “mature” 16 year old who usually made smart decisions;  he had a good “connection” to a situation that would offer him this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; he was persistent and stubborn about going on this adventure. While I understood his desire to experience an adventure with an uncertain outcome as I had done the same in my early 20’s when I set out to explore Europe on my own with nothing but a backpack in the mid-70’s, Africa clearly presented more potential for danger.

As I watched him turn away from us, his family, to walk down the ramp to his plane bound for South Africa, my thoughts were: I may never see him again, but if he dies, he will die doing what he loves and what he has chosen to do.  It was a deal I had to make with myself to accept the uncertainty of what lay ahead. In fact, he did have several life-threatening experiences with lions and hyenas, but his levelheadedness got him out of both jams. Now, when I tell his story, I describe it as his “walk-about”…the Aboriginal practice of a young man setting out alone into the wilderness to “become a man.”

On social media, the two adventurers reported having many ups and downs on the road, but mostly they continued to be motivated by the generosity and kindness of strangers they met along the way. This is the point of such adventures…for them and for my son who experienced many acts of kindness on their journeys.

But unlike my son’s adventures thus far, theirs did not have a happy ending.  A few days after their one year anniversary of being on the road while on a biking tour in Tajikistan, a random carload of young Islamic extremists spotted their cycling group as they drove by them, made a quick u-turn, and mowed them down deliberately. The NY Times showed a picture of the young murderers who reveled in their luck at having killed a group of “infidels.”

This could have been my son and his girlfriend/partner, or your son or daughter. I think often of the two sets of parents and wonder how they are processing what happened to their children. Do they take comfort in knowing that they were chasing their dream, doing what they most wanted to do in life? Or do they wish they had urged them to be more cautious; perhaps even advising them not to be so trustworthy or to avoid certain places. If they were like my son, their words of caution would probably have fallen on deaf ears. He always finds more reasons to explore than not. After all, the world is an enormous, enticing place that beckons to be experienced. I understand that and feel the same way, but as a young woman, I was more cautious.

Have circumstances nowadays changed to make such a journey more dangerous than ever before? Or were there always dangers associated with extreme traveling? How do we feel about the tension between exploring the untamed world vs. living a life of greater security and less bliss? How would I now feel if my son had died while pursuing his dream? As teachers and/or parents, should we encourage young adults to follow their dreams?

There are no right or wrong answers; the answers depend on the individuals themselves.  Everyone has to make choices about how they want to live, and sometimes how they want to die.  This couple shared a short-lived, but amazing  dream together…of their own choosing and my heart goes out to their families.