A Journey Home

At the beginning of every year, I choose a word. Not a resolution. Not a goal. A word that quietly becomes my companion for the year ahead.

This year, my word was Becoming. At the time, I thought I knew what it meant.

I imagined it would be about my work. Finishing the second edition of Wear Your Life Well. Developing new speaking opportunities. Creating Style Your Life and continuing to build a community for women who want to live more authentically.

And yes, it has been about all of those things.

But over the past few months I've realized that becoming isn't something we accomplish. It's something we continue.

At the end of August, I'll be boarding a plane to Germany. I'm going alone. Not because I want solitude, but because this feels like a pilgrimage more than a vacation.

Many of you know my mother's story. She came to Canada in 1952 as a young German immigrant looking for a better life. Her courage, resilience, and determination shaped the woman I became, and her story is woven throughout my book.

But there is another story I know very little about.

My father's.

He died when I was seven years old. Like so many children, I grew up knowing the loss more than I knew the man.

What I do know is that he, too, was part of the upheaval that followed the Second World War. He was born into a German family living in what is now the Czech Republic. His early life was marked by displacement, uncertainty, and rebuilding.

His sister—my aunt Erika—is still living in Germany. The last time I saw her, I was a young girl. Nearly fifty years have passed.

Almost two years ago, her family reached out to me. Every so often I receive a message telling me that my aunt is thinking about me. Those simple notes have quietly built a bridge across decades.

Now I'm going to cross it. I'm not travelling in search of genealogy. I'm travelling in search of understanding. Not just of where I came from, but perhaps of parts of myself that have always been there, waiting patiently to be discovered.

I've learned over the years that life isn't about becoming someone new. It's about becoming more fully yourself. Perhaps this journey will answer questions I've carried for decades. Perhaps it will raise entirely new ones. Either way, I have a feeling I'll return home expanded.

I'll be taking you with me—not on every train ride or through every photograph—but through the stories, the conversations, and the moments that shape this unexpected chapter in Becoming Helene.

Because if there's one thing I've learned, it's that our stories are never really finished.

We're all still becoming.

And I have a feeling this journey is going to teach me what that truly means.