Life Map Story

I’m still here at Epic Anthology as I’m writing this. I’ve come to learn that hotels are ridiculous when it comes charging customers for simple Wi-Fi and that phone tethering is awesome.

We were told to pick a specific time of our life, derive a theme from it, and tell a story about it. Two different versions had to be done: a 30-second version and a 3-minute version. I had them both done in less than 10 minutes while others were still struggling to start. Having a laptop on you has it’s advantages. I chose a theme of ‘trust’ and wrote about the time that I trusted that my mom would recover from an injury she was suffering during my early high school years.

3-minute version:

During the beginning of high school, my mom fell very ill to constant sickness and  extreme back pain.  I remember waking up many times late at night, just to find her laying on the floor and throwing up in front of the toilet. She found it difficult to sleep in bed and resorted to laying on the floor for comfort. It turned out that mom was suffering a from a weak spine that resulted in injuring one of her back plates.

My mom is the only person that I have. She is the only person who has raised me. Losing her would mean the end of everything that I live and breathe for. Getting surgery in the United States almost seemed impossible. Mom planned on having surgery done, but she did not carry any form of health insurance. She is a single parent mother of two children. She can’t afford to pay for her surgery. I felt hopeless at the time. I was young, jobless, and felt hopeless when it came to helping my mom. The only thing I was able to do was lay my hand on my mom and tell her the same thing over and over again.

“It will be okay.”

As cliché as it sounded, it was all that all I could say. But for some reason, I even though I had no way of proving it. I trusted that what I said was the truth.

Mom found a solution. With the assistance of her parents and other family living in South Korea, she decided to take a flight to visit them so that they could assist her in paying for her surgery. One thing that threatened the plan was the role her condition would play during the flight. It is possible that the flight could cause some additional pain on top of the injury she was already suffering. Regardless, mom decided to toughen it out and make the trip.

When she left, I had nobody to take care of me. It’s not that I felt lost or anything, but things certainly felt different. I wasn’t suffering, because I had trust. I had the trust of mom, that she would come back as a new person and I trusted that God would deliver the best solution. I lived that month continuing to be happy, knowing that things could only get better.

I remember walking home one night from a friend’s house. It was late, perhaps 2AM, when I received a foreign call. It was mom. She sounded pretty dazed from the surgery, but I knew it was still a good thing because I didn’t hear any suffering. It was a relief.

Weeks later, mom returned. I was coming home from school and she was standing tall and proud in front of the house smiling. I knew that day would come, and I’m glad that I trusted that God would make it happen. God has continued to protect mom, and she is still doing well to this day.

30-second (aka TL:DR) version

During the beginning of high school, my mother fell very ill to constant sickness and  extreme back pain. My mom is the only person that I have, so losing her to sickness would be very distressing. Regardless, I always trusted that God did have a plan for my mother and that no matter how bleak the situation, it will always turn out for the best. Needless to say, she overcame her sickness and any other hurdles that were in her path. She is doing well to this day.