You are meant to be here
A chance encounter.
I talked to someone today and was surprised to find out she is a lawyer in Germany. But like most professionals in Canada, who face the bar of credential recognition and what it stands for – further studies, time and expense – she thinks she will never get to practice her profession here.
She may be right.
They tried to pacify her and told her to get a legal assistant certification instead. “But why?” her eyes locked into mine, challenging, “A legal assistant earns $10 and I already earn $15 at my current job. By the time I finish, I will be 60. I am German and it is hard for me to read and understand English.” She looks to the distance, to her past, turning poignant, “I think it was a mistake, us coming here.”
A pregnant pause.
She turned to me, with an apologetic smile on her face. “But it is different for you. You speak good English, you are young. And it is really better here.”
“And there are the children.”
Both of us looked away as silence hung in the air.
The children – the reason why adults do the things they do – like working two jobs, or one parent going abroad to work, or doing something crazy like jumping ship and migrating to another country where they do not know anyone. The children.
But if the adults are miserable in what they are “doing” for the children, won’t the children pick up on it and suffer somehow?
And is it really for the children?
Or are the children merely the cover-up for a greater dream? For hope, however vain, for a better life?
And does one seek to bury that hope with an excuse – for the children? Is it because although fervent, hope must be nurtured in secrecy and in silence while going through the drudgery of the early years? There must be (there has to be) a reason to go on, hence the children.
My friend’s bus was there and she waved goodbye to me. And I was left with questions. And some answers.
Because at the end of it all, it is for the children. A first world life opens first world doors. They will have opportunities they would otherwise not have.
But in the meantime, parents have the responsibility – to themselves – to be the best that they can be, not in terms of how the world sees things, but how they see themselves.
How they feel about themselves.
How they have embraced their choice and gave it their all.
How it is okay to regret, and not be judged.
And in the end – how they have made the sacrifice (of some sorts) – for their children to have wings, the most beautiful and strongest that they can give.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday (Kahlil Gibran).
Do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
– Desiderata
Article and Photo by Issa. Copyright 2009-2012.
website: www.YouWantToBeRich.com
email: issa@youwanttoberich.com
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