Sometimes a person forgets the very reason that he is striving very hard to accomplish. I belong to a middle-class family with a working mother, who has undoubtedly worked harder than me to accomplish my dreams and aspirations. The factor that motivated me the most was to be able enough to provide her with the best lifestyle possible. Due to this motivation and a lot of hard work, I secured a position in the prestigious Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani. The intense competition in BITS made me strive to work harder to accomplish my highest potential. But this hard work led me to give less and less time to the very reason I was trying to accomplish. Initially, I talked to my mother every day which later became weeks, it reached till the point that I almost never had any time to talk to her. Once amid a hustling day, I was sitting for a cup of coffee in the canteen when suddenly an advertisement on television attracted my attention. It was the advertisement of idea playing in which the mobile phones of the mother and the son gets swapped and while the phone of the son, that was with the mother, was ringing continuously the mother’s phone, that was with the son, never rang, the son realizes this and almost crying immediately calls her mother and says ma, without forgetting I will call you every day. Watching this I couldn’t stop myself and called her from canteen itself, crying I promised her the same. That day we talked for almost an hour. I am keeping that promise till now. That advertisement made me realize that it’s not only the large success that matters but also the small moments and the journey that you enjoy with the one you love matters.
From the above paragraph, you must have realized that I am very close to my mother. Imagine a situation where the person you love the most in your life is in the dire need of you and whatever you try, you are not able to help or even be with him/her during that critical period. This is the time you break apart and this feeling of being chained by the circumstance is the worst. This is what happened to me. I am a sailor and my job involved sailing on a vessel for six months across various countries. I was on the voyage from Cartagena to Auckland and like regular days I dialled a WhatsApp call to my mother to talk about the routine she seemed somewhat unwell to me but she said its nothing. The biggest problem with mothers is, especially when you are away, that they can easily hear and take all your worries and problems but would never disclose even a smallest of distress to you. After talking to her I continued my usual work and slept. The next morning, I started my work schedule, it was a hectic day. After finishing all my work, I came to my room tired in the evening. I saw some 25 messages from my family and the very first one read mom has got a heart attack. I froze completely, I forgot everything. It felt like I suddenly lost everything. Trembling I further read that she is in the hospital right now and out of danger but they asked me to come back. I called them and asked to at least see mom in the video chat. They said it's not allowed. I felt something wrong but thought maybe she needed rest. I went to the captain asking for emergency leave to go home and explained to him the situation. He immediately managed for my flights from Auckland airport during the day the ship was scheduled to arrive arrived but right now we were amidst the ocean and it was going to take a day to reach Auckland. This was the toughest day of my life to pass. I continuously stayed connected to my family to check on her condition. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. Again, the next morning I asked to see her on video and received the same response. That evening we reached the port but the journey wasn’t finished yet there was still around 1-day flight left till I could see her. Every moment seemed impossible to go by. I reached the hospital and meeting her I broke down crying. This was the emotions that I kept suppressed the whole 2 days flowing out at once. The doctor then said that she actually went to coma but recovered just hours before I reached her. This was the most intense pressure I felt in my life and keeping everything suppressed not knowing what the actual scenario is was the biggest challenge of my life.