It feels like only yesterday when I was getting ready to go to university. I felt scared and excited all at once. It was going to be my first time staying in a residence and being away from my parents for more then two weeks. Ah the sadness that came over me that day when my parents dropped me off and said good luck and work hard. I couldn't help but feel sad. Tears were dripping from my eyes, I tried fighting it but it didn't help. As soon as my mom saw me she started crying as well. The relationship between my mom and I has always been very strong. She is my best friend, mentor and mother. The love I have for her is infinite.
I am in my third year now and our relationship is still strong, it might even be stronger. Just recently I remembered that I brought along an old watch that my mother had bought me when I was a little boy. Back in those days the coolest digital watches had a led back light. And I was the only one out of all my friends who didn't have this type of watch with the led back light. I was only in grade 4 at the time, about 10 years old. My favorite colour was blue and that was the same colour as the led back lights of the watches my friends had. The desire to get a watch grew stronger everyday when my friends showed of their digital watches with the blue led back lights.
My birthday was coming up and I thought to myself, what if I get a watch for my birthday? So I went to my mother and I asked her if she could buy me a watch for my birthday. My mom always played it of as if she wasn't going to buy me a watch for my birthday. On the day of my 10th birthday my mom gave me a little box wrapped in paper. Back then I didn't know proper watches came in a little box. So without knowing what it was I opened the little metal box and there it was, a Casio Illuminator watch. Oh the joy overflowed inside of me. It felt like nothing I have ever felt in my life.
So obviously the watch had to have a led back light. My whatch game with more futures than those of my friends. Mine was waterproof it has an alarm with a snooze function and it could signal out every hour that went by. After every hour it would beep to tell me that an hour has passed.
Then out of all the positive things came one negative thing, the led back light wasn't blue... it was green!!! Let me just stop the story for a moment, I was still a child, I didn't know what I was thinking and I might have been spoiled a bit. Back to the story. As soon as I saw that the led back light was green, I started to cry and my mother didn't know what was going on. She saw me going from this happy little boy to a tantrum throwing spoiled brat. I told her that I didn't want it and that she could keep if she wanted it. I was so mad at her. As the days went by I started wearing my "stupid watch". And a few months later I saw that one of my friends had the same watch, this gave me more confidence to wear my watch.
Seeing the watch now just made me feel bad because of the way I treated my mother when she just wanted to do something nice for me. My mother always tried to buy me the nice toys and electronics I wanted, thinking of me and my feelings although I didn't appreciate her efforts back then. I didn't grow up having the richest parents but they still made an effort to ensure that I don't see what we have and don't have. They did it so well that I only noticed in high school that we didn't have all the money in the world.
There is such a big difference between what I had growing up and what my sister had growing up. I am the oldest and I had the most toys and she just had to share what I had. My role as a big brother only showed when I started to notice what was going on around me and that not everything is about me. My sister had to wear my old clothes and because she grew up like that it didn't feel weird to her. I was the guy in our family making fun of her not knowing what our situation was.
I just wish that I could go back and make her childhood more worthwhile and make the life of my parents a bit easier. Luckily I noticed what was going on around me and what my parents and my little sister had to give up in raising me. Even now I am tearing up.
I know that I can't go back in time and undo what I did but what I can do is work hard now and finish my degree so that when my sister goes to university I can help my parents financially so that my sister can study carefree. Hopefully one day I'll be able to repay my parents for everything that they have done for me.
Mommy, Daddy and little Sis I love you and I'll do my best!!!
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