We are most vulnerable during our high time or when we are feeling very low. It’s this point in life where we really get to know the real colors of life, people and the supposedly called “loved ones”. It’s not that we can’t stand on our own, but we need someone we can trust and depend on. Someone who really understands the struggle you are going through. Someone who helps you unconditionally, without being selfish. Someone who picks you up when you fall.
Today as I write this, me and my family are in our low time economically. We had struggled enough in the past, the seed of which has sown a great philosophical life to me. Life, the perspectives of which, has embodied certain meaning into me. We had our seer of struggle in the past. But then my friend! Life always makes you vulnerable. So why now? Just when we were having certain stability, the uncertainty of which can’t be denied.
I still remember those dark and cold days when we were near homeless. I still remember the warmth of my mother’s lap even when she was feeling cold during those winter days. We didn’t have enough clothes to protect us from the inevitable cold. The floors used to be cold back then and mother was the only warmth we experienced. I don’t know if that’s what life was and probably is - not having enough food, money and shelter.
Schooling was (and is) one of the important aspects for parents to their children. Seriously? How could I go to school where dreams are thrown away at a money’s graveyard. Surely my parents didn’t get proper schooling but they are one of the wisest of all. They couldn’t afford the money for my proper education. But like any other parents, their hopes and dreams thrive on their children’s proper growth. I was always fascinated by the miracles of words and books - I did wish to study for myself. To live a better life not for me but for my parents.
Schooling was also a struggle for me. Luckily my grades were good enough for getting scholarship. But those weren’t the things that made schooling life difficult. It was to be not able to keep up with “friends”. I didn’t eat lunch not because I wasn’t hungry, but lack of money my parents struggled to earn. Trust me, I was as hungry as every other people get. If Earth was like those edible house from a fairy tale, the Earth would have vanished. Schooling taught me the value of a proper education and money. Every occasional money I used to get ( Rs 5 worth of dried green peas), I’d save them in my little bank, the cracks of which used to fill wonderful imaginations I had of the uncertain future.
Such untold tales are many. My parents’ diary is the living library for anyone who thrives to find meaning of life. The words etched from the tears and bloods still echo throughout my life. The pages of life still embark a nostalgic journey of a not-so-ordinary family.
As the saying goes “a man values life when you strive him/her of food, money and shelter”. Now as I value life to its greatest endpoints, I am not certain why life has made me and my family vulnerable. Life is a combination of misery and failure at these times.
Vulnerability gets pronounced. Vulnerability surprises life itself. Vulnerability is courage. I am vulnerable. My family is vulnerable. Above all, life is more vulnerable than these words I have carved.