91Èȱ¬

Today I'm thinking about someone I met just over a year ago, and for whom this calendar date is irrevocably etched into her life. Lisa French was on the London bus blown up in five years ago.

We filmed her as she prepared to turn such evil into a force for good. On Inside Out last year we showed her helping to build a house in Cambodia for people who'd lost limbs to landmines. She had volunteered with the on a trip she intends to repeat this coming November.

That she survived the terrorist attack on the capital makes her one of the lucky ones, but as we saw, walking away from the explosion leaves mental as well as physical scars.

I was with her as she took her tentative steps back onto a London bus to overcome her understandable fear. In exchange she challenged me to join her in a freefall parachute jump. For me the courage needed to step out of a plane at 13,000 feet was nothing compared to the single step up Lisa took from the kerb to enter the lower deck on the iconic double-decker.

I've seen Lisa laugh and have marvelled at her positivity, but I have also seen her on the morning of the anniversary in Tavistock Square laying flowers for her fellow victims who didn't walk away. That pain, four years on, was still so very raw.

Another 12 months have passed. I hope for Lisa will eventually give way to sweeter memories of the joy she brought to a Cambodian family able to move into their brand new home.

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