My dad pulled out his handkerchief from his right pocket, removed his glasses and wiped off the next mesh of sweat droplets that gathered on his forehead. “Doctor, we were about to board the plane. What’s really wrong with him?”
She examined me and paused. She went back to her table to do some scribbling on her memo pad. Then she returned her gaze to him. “Your son has asthma. For the sake of his health and in case of any emergency in the upcoming months, don’t think of flying him on any plane for now.”
As at the time, asthma medications were not as developed as those of today.
My dad tried his best to look like a man who wasn’t worried. He kept a tough face. Anyone who knew the man could read that he wasn’t happy. In fact, he was worried, tired and heartbroken at the same time. He was stressed out. We didn’t even make it up to the airplane when he noticed something was wrong with my breathing. As a business man and engineer, flying was his thing. Why couldn’t flying be the same thing for his precious son?
He wanted my first experience to be special. He had taken time to plan our travelling. It was meant to be my first journey by air. I had never boarded an airplane as at then. My first flight was interrupted because of the first asthmatic attack. Asthma had hit me at a very tender age. And my dad was heartbroken. He did his best to hide his sad emotions from those close to us.
I was too small to understand my responsibility in keeping my inhaler safe. I didn’t even understand the illness. I also didn’t know when I had to use my inhaler. I was young and naïve. Still, there was this writing on my father’s face each time he looked at me quietly. It was the writing of determination. He wanted me to grow up like a healthy, smart child. He wasn’t going to give up – not even if it was going to cost him a chunk of his cash. My dad never wanted me to live like a sick child.
He didn’t give up on me. And I wouldn’t let asthma control my life.
THE MIRACLE OF LOVE
And so it was. My dad pushed me to breathe – and to live.
Since it was safe and not that far from home, I enjoyed walking to and fro school because it was good exercise for my lungs. I played with other children in school.
In fact, at school, I joined other kids to play with sand. We built sand houses on the rainy days and used stones (or sticks) to draw on the play grounds in the dry season.
And at home I enjoyed climbing and going down the staircase. I also ran round the compound with my neighbors’ kids.
In the evenings, whenever I was at home and I felt the room was ‘hot’, I removed my shirt and had a good feel of the air on my skin. I played soccer with other kids and teenagers who lived in our street.
Even if I had an asthmatic attack at 1:26am, I was given a shot and then rushed to the medical centre or my doctor’s home – depending on where my doctor was at the time.
I was well taken care of – and most importantly, I was loved.
Fast forward to today, my dad is no more. Yet, I live like a normal, healthy adult. It was not because I had access to the most ultra-expensive medical treatments. It was not because I enjoyed going to hospital. It was because I had an amazing, hard-working dad who gave me love.
Early enough, he taught me important lessons on love, life and my self-worth.
Not surprising, I’ve come to enjoy my life’s journey. I am very grateful for the good and bad experiences I’ve had over the years.
If you have an open heart that is filled with love, you can relate to what it means to not give up on a person you love dearly. And if you’ve lived long enough to see how the person you love transforms into a better person, you know the meaning of a joy that can’t be easily explained with words.
But this is it. It’s what you do when you love a person. You do what needs to be done to ensure that person is happy, feels safe and feels important at the same time. Sometimes, the things you do might even position you to make countless sacrifices – and you know you have to do the sacrifices because you love that person.
FIGHTING FOR YOUR SELF-WORTH
As I grew up, one of the things I experienced whenever people knew that I was asthmatic was the ‘glass vase care’ they gave me.
I was handled like a flower vase on a table. They just didn’t want to see me fall off. I wasn’t allowed to do certain things so that I won’t have an asthmatic attack. I wasn’t allowed to go to certain places because of the potential airborne harm I would have to be exposed to. I was even punished each time I was caught ‘breaking the rules’ of living safe. In reality, no matter how people (who knew my medical history) denied it, I was still a sick child to them.
And so I decided to fight for myself. I am my father’s son. I won’t let the seeds of love he planted in me die. I won’t let his determination erase off my mind. I won’t forget how he channeled his resources to lay a good foundation for me. Those were not wasted efforts. And I wasn’t going to see them go down the drain.
I was determined to continue living – not just living as someone who breathes with healthy lungs. But live as a confident man who is taking responsibility for his successes and failures.
But.
It wasn’t always like this.
As I grew from the middle of my teenage years into my adult years, I’ve had to fight to protect my self-esteem.
Like when a member of my family, told me that she wasn’t sure if I had the brains to pass an admission exam into the third high school I attended. When the results were out, one of the teachers of the school revealed that I had the second best score. The school’s councilor later on placed me in one of the science classes.
Or when a girl in my neighborhood told me ‘I read too much.’ It got me to wonder if she never met any guy who loves to learn things from books and articles.
Or when my older cousins, ‘who love me so much,’ tried to demean my dreams of doing business (better than my dad)beyond national boundaries.
Or the degrading expression on a female colleague’s face, in my undergraduate days in college, when I told her I didn’t like disturbance in class. The damn girl wanted to copy my lecture notes while our lecturer was still dictating his own note to us. Of course I lost about two or three lines because of her. What was annoying about it was the fact that she would never read the blessed notebook (which, by the way, I later on learnt she had poor study habits and profound low self-esteem issues).
No matter what people said to me and how the reacted to my focus and determination, I learnt to develop a thick skin. I love myself. And I also value me for my strengths and weaknesses.
I am comfortable in my own skin.
I keep on sticking to my life plan knowing that all things (in my experience) are working together for my good.
AND SO I FIGHT
Periodically, I take my time to look myself in the mirror. I stir into my own eyeballs and say (to me in the mirror), “Get that shit out of your head. You are more than this. You’re smart, you’re handsome, and you’re VERY important.”
It’s one of the things I do to remind myself that I don’t have to live my life based on the unhealthy expectations of other people. I won’t compare myself with other people. I don’t know their goals and their secret woes. It’s really not necessary to eat such a pie that leads to unhappiness.
And this applies to you as well. No matter what you go through in life; you have to protect your sense of self-worth.
This means you surround yourself with people who will encourage you to be the best version of yourself. You leave that unhealthy relationship. You let go of that one-sided friendship. You disconnect from your fake friends, and remain determined to live your life on terms that enforce your strengths and diminish your weaknesses.
This also means that whenever you make a mistake in the course of your relationship with your special someone, you would no more blame yourself to death. Just admit that you failed. A mistake is what it is – a mistake. But don’t stop there. Get new knowledge on how to do better next time. As long as you’re not going to give up, your continuous determination to win will definitely pay off.
You just have to set realistic relationship goals for yourself. And never stop revaluating your progress. Sometimes, all you need is to change your particular approach to doing what you have been doing so you could achieve what you set out to achieve.
Love is a choice. And every day you wake up, you are given the choice to love yourself and the people who mean the world to you. So, stop the self-loathing. Stop replaying your painful memories. Get on with living your life.
I’m not saying this is going to be easy. In truth, protecting your sense of self-worth is a tough job to execute.
It will take time. But no matter how long it takes, in the end, it is usually worth the effort you put in.
After all, you are important. I don’t just think so – I know so.
