I want to say happy 90th birthday to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, whose birthday is July 6. He has been my inspiration since I first went with my father on a religious pilgrimage to Lhasa, Tibet, at about age 7 in the early 1980s. It took us about three months to walk there from our village in the Khampa region of eastern Tibet. When we got inside the Jhokang Temple, I was truly amazed to see huge statues and also pictures on a wall of the Dalai Lama and other religious leaders.

Around my village, all the religious buildings were in ruins after the protests of the Chinese occupation, and we could not have statues in our homes. I didn’t even know that such a thing as pictures existed. While I revered my parents, when I saw these images I realized for the first time we also had a cultural leader who I had never known about. I had grown up only witnessing my parents praying in secret for the safety of people who had gone away, including “him” (they would never say “Dalai Lama”). Nobody would give me clear answers about who the people were or why they were gone.

It still pains me that my parents, having experienced so much trauma in their younger lives during the early years of the occupation, were afraid to express their religion and love of their Dalai Lama to the world around them. In my teens, I ran away to join a nunnery in Lhasa. While there, I ended up joining a protest for Tibet’s freedom and the Dalai Lama’s return, and was imprisoned and endured periods of torture for several months. After my release and return home, I realized I needed to leave, for my own safety and that of my family and village.

I have missed my home and family terribly, but I don’t regret speaking up for what is right as the Dalai Lama has always done. I have been in the United States since 1992, and I still feel eternally grateful for the Dalai Lama’s presence in our world and for my freedom to express my admiration of and devotion to him. My parents never got to see him come home, and Tibetans still wait for his return today. My wish for him in this very important year is that he will get to.

Tsultrim Dolma lives in Amherst. She has been grateful to be a U.S. citizen since 2000, where she has been able to live, work, and speak freely for truth and justice.