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I was suffocating.
It was a scorching summer day in Didim, a coastal town in Turkey. The water park was a war zone where the crowd of giants flowed faster than the water in the rides. It felt like a five-year-old like me could be trampled any moment. I held onto my mother tightly to as a protection. Out of the blue, my sweaty hand slipped from my mother’s. As I tried to hold onto her, the crowd pushed me left and right. I shouted for her, but everyone roared at that same time. My mother had disappeared into the crowd. I could feel my heart threatening to leave my chest to quest for my mother. My ears started to ring. My breathing became rapid. I was suffocating. Suddenly a thought hit me: mother certainly wouldn’t cry in this situation. …show more content…
Sisli Etfal, my mother’s hospital, is the epitome of a public hospital with its crowded rooms, chipping paint and the smell of disinfectant. As part of a community involvement project, I spent five days there to motivate the child patients. The more I spent time the patients, the more I respected them. None of them complained about being in the hospital, although they were trapped there. Seeing this put everything in perspective. What if some of the seeds we plant in our garden don’t sprout, or my resolution gets vetoed in a MUN conference? These were merely opportunities to learn. The real problems in life were hiding in plain sight; what mattered was to notice them and do something about them. What mattered was being open to discovery and knowledge in order to find innovative solutions to help others. My mother knew what mattered all along – she’d even dedicated her life to it. As opposed to the first time I saw my mother working, this revelation would turn my second experience at her work into a life-changing one. If my mother could help others, so could I – all I had to do was to want to be a part of the
I was suffocating.
It was a scorching summer day in Didim, a coastal town in Turkey. The water park was a war zone where the crowd of giants flowed faster than the water in the rides. It felt like a five-year-old like me could be trampled any moment. I held onto my mother tightly to as a protection. Out of the blue, my sweaty hand slipped from my mother’s. As I tried to hold onto her, the crowd pushed me left and right. I shouted for her, but everyone roared at that same time. My mother had disappeared into the crowd. I could feel my heart threatening to leave my chest to quest for my mother. My ears started to ring. My breathing became rapid. I was suffocating. Suddenly a thought hit me: mother certainly wouldn’t cry in this situation. …show more content…
Sisli Etfal, my mother’s hospital, is the epitome of a public hospital with its crowded rooms, chipping paint and the smell of disinfectant. As part of a community involvement project, I spent five days there to motivate the child patients. The more I spent time the patients, the more I respected them. None of them complained about being in the hospital, although they were trapped there. Seeing this put everything in perspective. What if some of the seeds we plant in our garden don’t sprout, or my resolution gets vetoed in a MUN conference? These were merely opportunities to learn. The real problems in life were hiding in plain sight; what mattered was to notice them and do something about them. What mattered was being open to discovery and knowledge in order to find innovative solutions to help others. My mother knew what mattered all along – she’d even dedicated her life to it. As opposed to the first time I saw my mother working, this revelation would turn my second experience at her work into a life-changing one. If my mother could help others, so could I – all I had to do was to want to be a part of the