from CNN

The mother with an important but dangerous job sat down to write a goodbye letter to her two young daughters. Just in case, she thought. The Taliban could get lucky this time and finally kill her. Fawzia Koofi, who is campaigning for the presidency of Afghanistan, began by writing this to her 10- and 12-year-old. "Today I am going on political business to Faizabad and Darwaz. I hope I will come back soon and see you again, but I have to say that perhaps I will not." If she didn't come home, she wrote little Shuhra and Shaharzad, they should take their mother's advice on how to get on without her. "First," she wrote, "don't forget me." Finish school, live independently, stay with your aunt, study abroad. All the money their mother has in the bank, it's all theirs. Spend it wisely, on school. "A girl needs an education if she is to excel in this man's world." Explore the world. Be brave. Make your country a better place. "All of us human beings will die one day," Koofi wrote. "Maybe today is the day I will die. But if I do, please know that it was for a purpose." Despite her security detail receiving a message that the Taliban had planted a bomb under her car, she went, and made it back home safely. This is Koofi, someone who believes without question, even since childhood, that purpose has always guided her. Luck was just something that always showed up when she needed it.