Ma’ahin Ahmed
“Persevere. Learn to love and respect yourself. Basically, you can’t give love until you have some (love) to give, so it has to begin with yourself. And respect yourself despite your blemishes” – Sharon
Sharon was born and grew up in the States, and she moved to Canada in the early 1970s. Having completed her undergraduate with a major in sociology, Sharon came to Canada with an interest in social work. However not being a Canadian citizen, she was unable to pursue that line of career. Therefore she invested herself in getting a degree in education, and subsequently started a career in special education in Quesnel, BC. The article that follows offers a glimpse of some important moments in Sharon’s journey from having a less than ideal childhood to becoming an independent and successful individual as an adult.
BREAKING THE CODE
On a bright summer afternoon, Mrs. Smith opened her door to find the skinny little girl from up the street standing on her doorstep. Little Sharon, in a breezy white frock, hair tied in ponytails, stood there with a wide grin on her face; she held up a bunch of dandelions that she had picked from Mrs. Smith’s garden, and asked Mrs. Smith if she wanted to buy some flowers. Not at all surprised by this routine occurrence, Mrs. Smith walked back in to get some change, and bought her own garden’s dandelions. Little Sharon smiled at Mrs. Smith in gratitude, and then counting the change to make sure she had enough, she gleefully skipped down the street to buy some treats for herself.
Sharon growing up in the States
Having enjoyed her hard-earned treats—pretzels to be exact—Sharon returned home later that afternoon to find her parents talking in hushed voices. One look at her parents, and Sharon knew what this conversation was about. They were moving to a new town. Again. Her father, who worked in construction, had ran out of work, and so he had to find work elsewhere. But Sharon was not the least bit bothered by the fact that they were moving. Having lived in this town for a while, Sharon had seen most of it; for her, it was time to move on anyway.
Moving around had always been an adventure for Sharon. New towns meant going to new schools—she would end up going to 13 different elementary schools by the time she would be in grade 7. As thrilling as frequent change was, with every new school Sharon attended, one thing remained constant: She could not learn to read like the rest of her peers. The alphabet—that seemingly universal set of cryptic symbols with countless combinations—just did not make sense to Sharon. Every time little Sharon opened her books, a new machination of the alphabets unfolded; they danced around in her head, causing inexplicable chaos. Putting up a fight against those mischievous alphabets seemed futile, but predisposed to almost naïve optimism; Sharon refused to let this challenge weigh her down. Just then, the universe conspired in her favour, and in grade two Sharon met a teacher who recognized her problem. Some after-school lessons and a companion—Sharon’s teacher—, who was willing to walk an extra mile with her, finally broke the code of her textbooks.
A MILESTONE ACHIEVED
In 1962, several towns and schools later, Sharon, now a young lady, still quite thin—but tall, 5 feet and 10 inches—walked up the stage at her high school’s graduation ceremony. With each step towards the podium, increasingly vivid memories of the previous two years flashed through her mind. The rheumatic fever; the endless hours of isolation at the nurse’s office while all her classmates were out in the playground; the social awkwardness resulting from isolation; the strangeness of finding someone who believed in her abilities—her music teacher, who encouraged her to participate in singing and plays; in this moment everything of the past seemed so distant and long ago. In this moment, the only real thing was the high school diploma that Sharon was now holding in her hands.
Sharon in her graduation gown, standing beside her mother, father and half-sister
As Sharon and her classmates tossed their graduation caps in the air, a beautiful amalgam of excitement, triumph, and most of all, joy took over her. Sharon was the first person in her family to graduate from high school. Graduating high school was not the end of all challenges for Sharon; however, this achievement enabled her to appreciate her idiosyncrasies, to be confident, and to aspire for more in life.
TO COLLEGE AND BEYOND
Having completed high school, Sharon, owing to her immense hard work and some luck, was able to attend college despite financial constraints. Ironically—or luckily for Sharon—the rheumatic fever made her eligible to enter college through a government program that supported students with physical disabilities. In college Sharon continued to be ever more adventurous, as she went from studying music, to history, to finally graduating with a major in sociology. Initially after college, she experimented with different jobs and towns. Now she jokingly blames her father’s inconsistent jobs, and the subsequent moving around when she was younger, for giving her itchy feet and an always-on-the-move temperament. Eventually, after completing a degree in education she started her career in special education in Quesnel, which rooted her in one place for a while. Although after a while, as expected, Sharon, inseparable from adventure as she was, decided to take a break from Quesnel and travelled to Japan.
Upon returning from Japan, Sharon did not feel at home in Quesnel anymore. She considered some other options and had meant to move to Coquitlam for work, but instead she ended up in New Westminster; or as she put it:
“I found myself getting lost; and I drove into Sapperton. I thought, ‘this is like a nice town’. So, I decided to try New Westminster”.