Every person has a calling from deep within, if they listen. Every person must live their own hero's journey if they are to fulfill it. Anne Merriman's life shines a beacon of light on how everyone can walk their own true path. Born and raised in Liverpool during World War II, Anne felt called to be a nun and joined the Medical Missionaries of Mary. After becoming a doctor and spending twenty years providing medical service to the less fortunate in Nigeria, Anne left the order and returned to the world as a layperson. Her journey had twists and turns, ups and downs, friends and enemies, and love and heartbreak. Her compassion for the less fortunate and suffering eventually led her into palliative and hospice care. Anne became an important palliative care pioneer in Singapore and Sub-Saharan Africa, receiving a Nobel Peace Prize Nomination and founding a model of palliative care for all of Africa, Hospice Africa Uganda.
Anne Merriman's epic adventures, forbidden love, outlandish flair, fiery nature and Godly pursuits will have the reader laughing and crying, while also finding pearls of wisdom that only the lens of hindsight can provide. May That's How the Light Got In illuminate your own path as we all search for and live out our own meaning and purpose.
Anne Merriman, MBE, MCommH, FRCPI, FRCP (born 1935 in Liverpool, England) is a British doctor, known for her pioneering work and influential research into palliative care in developing countries in Africa. She has campaigned to make affordable oral morphine widely available. In 1993, Dr. Merriman founded Hospice Africa Uganda. Under Anne Merriman's guidance, this introduced a model system of terminal care customized to developing countries with limited resources. From Hospice Africa Uganda (HAU) the Palliative Care Association of Uganda and was founded and Anne was the founding Vice President. On a continent-wide basis, she is a founder member of the African Palliative Care Association.Awards and degreesNominated for Nobel Peace Prize, 2014, Founder and Director of Policy and Initiator (2000) and leader of International Programmes for 20 years, Hospice Africa Uganda; Honorary Teaching Fellow, International Observatory on End of Life Care in the Institute for Health Research, Lancaster University; Honorary Professor of Palliative Care at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda; Founder Member and the Founding Vice Chair of the Board of the Palliative Care Association of Uganda (formed in 1999); Chair of Steering Committee of IHPCA and later Founder Member and the Founding Vice Chair of the Board of the African Palliative Care Association (formed in 2005); Board Member of Hospice Africa UK and Hospice Africa; Past Board Member of the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care (IAHPC); VicePresident for East Africa of the African Organisations for Research and Training in Cancer (AORTIC); MBE: Member of British Empire, honorary for contribution to health in Uganda; Irish Presidential award recipient for bringing peace to suffering in Africa.
Autumn received a MA in conflict resolution at the University of Bradford, UK (2009); she returned home to the Tri-Cities, WA, US, and worked for over five years as an analyst for a nonprofit mediation organization that resolved complex safety, health, environmental and related retaliatory issues at the Hanford nuclear site. In 2008 she volunteered with HAU and helped Anne write Audacity to Love, which provides an explanation and early history of palliative care in Africa. In 2014, she helped write Anne's Nobel Peace Price nomination. In 2017, she spent a year with Anne as an assistant/advisor and started working on this book.
