Sometimes, life just gives you one challenge after another – and it’s up to you to see how you can rise to it.
Just after my graduation from elementary school, Papang got into an accident. The vehicle he was driving was rammed by a passenger bus. He survived – but he sustained serious injuries.
We didn’t have any money, and Papang’s release from the hospital was delayed because we couldn’t pay his medical bill. It was only after he and Mama signed a promissory note that he was able to leave the hospital.
Life was tough before, but this accident made it even worse. Papang was bedridden for more than six months. We could not afford a wheelchair, so he was on crutches for more than a year. He eventually was able to walk, but his left leg was more than two inches shorter. Worst of all, it would take years for him to recover and start working again.
These were the most difficult times of our lives.
Odd Jobs, and Making Ends Meet
Looking back, maybe this was what Papang and Mama were preparing us for all this time. I learned the value of hard work from my them, and when I was given the opportunity to prove myself, I made sure to rise to the challenge.
We had to step up, and do what we could to make sure that money would come in. My mother accepted labandera jobs and sell tabako in the market. This wasn’t enough though, so my siblings and I decided that we should pitch in as well.
I sold vegetables which we grew in our backyard, hawked newspapers, and eventually ended up shining shoes. My brother Rey shined shoes as well, and sold kerosine. My sister Bibian sold banana cue. My other brother Alan became a jambolero, or an ambulant vendor, selling fruits, bread, and snacks to passengers of buses that stopped at the market.
We did all of this after school hours, and during the weekends. We even raised chickens to pay for our tuition. We lived on debts and the kind-heartedness of relatives, but we made sure to work hard in order to pay off those debts.
A LIfe-changing Opportunity
In Padada, in this land of luck and opportunity, I learned that nothing replaces good old fashioned hard work. But sometimes, you just have to recognize the opportunity when it shows itself.
I will be forever grateful to my cousin who gifted me that shoe shine box. Little did I know that I would be shining shoes for the next four years, and that this would sustain us even after Papang was released from the hospital and all those years he was at home, recuperating.
The thing is, I learned a lot from shining shoes – it literally was a life-changing opportunity. But that is a topic for the next and final part in this series.
Part 3 of 4
