Female Inspiration: Christine Collins

Today, my female inspiration is a little different from the iconic sirens who we've come to know quite week by their presence gracing our media on a global scale. I recently watched Changeling, a Clint Eastwood film about a single mother living in Los Angeles during the early 1900s with her only son, Walter Collins. (A little late, I know, but it's one of those films that I've been meaning to watch but just hadn't gotten there yet...) Anyways, after watching the film, I did some more research into Christine Collins, her case, and what she stood for as a person. She seemed very strong-willed, having an acute understanding of who she was as a person and what example she wanted to set as a person during her time here on Earth. Her ability to maintain courage towards the corruption of the LAPD at a time when women were yet to be heard, or her tenacity to right the wrongs of her fellow female patients from the time she spent at the Los Angeles County Hospital, or the strength of her spirit to ever lose hope of one day finding her son again. These were all remarkable qualities in a woman, mother, working mum, and in some ways, I admire her. So, I dedicate this weeks Female Inspiration to the inspirational Christine Collins...a feminist before her time.

“You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.” 

“You need to find a way to live your life, that it doesn't make a mockery of your values.” 

“Think of the long view of life, not just what's going to happen today or tomorrow. Don't give up what you most want in life for something you think you want now.” 

“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us.” 

“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.” 

“You've got to take the good with the bad, smile with the sad, love what you've got, and remember what you had. Always forgive, but never forget. Learn from mistakes, but never regret.” 

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swaps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists...it is real...it is possible...it's yours.” 

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”