“Benjamin,
is this your report card?” my mother asked me as she picked up the folded white
card from the table.
“Umm,
yeah,” I said trying to sound casual. Too ashamed to hand it to her, I had
dropped it on the table, hoping that she would not notice until after I went to
bed. I was in fifth grade. Most of my classmates considered me the dumbest kid
in the class and the rest of them the dumbest kid in the world. They frequently
made jokes about me. Before long, I too began to feel as though I was the most
stupid kid in fifth grade. Despite mother’s frequently saying, “You are smart,
Bennie. You can do anything and everything you want to do,” I did not believe
her.
While
slowly she read my report card, reading everything one word at a time, I
hurried into my room and started getting ready for my bed. A few minutes later
mother came into my bedroom.
“Benjamin,”
she said, “are these your grades?” She held the card in front of me as if I had
not seen it before. “Oh yeah, but you know it does not mean much.”
“No,
that’s not true Benjamin. It means a lot.”
“It’s just
a report card.”
“But it
is more than that.”
“Benjamin,
Education is the only way you are ever going to escape poverty,” she said. “It
is the only way you are ever going to get ahead in life and be successful. Do
you understand that?”
“Yes,
Mother,” I mumbled.
“But I
just can’t do better,” I said.
“No,
you are just not living upto your potential. You need to work more. From now on
you will not watch Television except for two pre selected programs and that too
after doing your daily home work.”
“Furthermore
you will go to library every weekend and read one extra book,” mother said.
Once the dumbest kid of the world is now known as Dr Benjamin Carson. He is famous as the world’s most successful pediatric neurosurgeon and the
world calls him genius. The nation calls him a messiah and former the president
of United States of America, Jorge W Bush, awarded him the highest civilian award
of the nation – ‘President’s National Award of Freedom’. Dr Benjamin Carson is
Director of John Hopkins Medical University; he is a celebrated author,
educator, great motivational speaker and a social activist.
Benjamin’s
mother changed his destiny by making him quit TV and embrace reading. Being black and son of a single mother parent
who did the chore work in houses of the rich taken away all the opportunities.
But his mother made it possible for him to be successful by giving gift of faith, helping make habit of reading books and break habit of watching TV. There
are more than a thousand book clubs and many other schools on his name today.
Though
he has already moved from ‘I have a dream to I am the dream.’ As millions of students
and their parents look up to Benjamin Carson to be like him or make their kids
like him. But still Benjamin Carson cherishes a dream of setting nation’s largest
scholarship scheme for students across the United States of America on his
mother Mrs Sonya Carson’s name.
I have
read two books by Dr Carson; am really influenced and improved by his ideas
and stories. One - ‘Gifted Hands – which is his biography. It has also been
converted into a fantastic movie with same name ‘Gifted Hands’. The other book is - ‘THINK BIG’. His life is all about gratefulness for mother, teacher and books. Especially for mother, Dr Benjamin Carson says, ‘A mother is not a person to lean on, but a
person to make leaning unnecessary.’
I truly believe, motherhood has the greatest influence in human life. On personal front let me borrow a quote from Abraham Lincoln to express my gratitude for my mother. 'All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.'
Today, on the mother’s day, ‘I salute all the
mothers of yesterday, today and tomorrow.’ Let us pledge to make her happy and keep on doing this for her entire life and beyond. For me, it is quite simple as she is particular only about two things. One, how caring husband am I to my wife? Two, how good instrument of service am I to others?
