Lessons my daughter taught me

When I look back at my life from where I am standing today, it seems such a long time ago when I had started my independent life…when I started exploring the world, having and realizing dreams, making independent decisions. While I was in college and even after that when I started job, my dreams and planning for my life were so different. It was a regular existence and regular aspirations like everyone else in my circle. I was looking through a cylindrical tunnel towards the other end, imagining what I see on the other side is all that is there to be.

And then Tuhina came in my life and she made me a special mother. Life is now quite different than what I had imagined it to be 10 years back. Days go by in juggling between various therapies and following home programs. But it is not just me who is working with her, trying to teach her the smallest of things; my little girl is also teaching me equally important lessons. I sometimes wonder if Tuhina was not there I would not have learnt some of these life lessons. I list out a few things she taught me

1). Patience – I remember the school moral science classes where we were asked to list down our positive and negative(needs improvement) traits, and impatience topped my list of negative traits. Thanks to tuhi, I get a daily opportunity to practice patience. Though I still need a lot of improvement but many days I manage to do it.

2). Acceptance – As a child, I knew of a differently abled person in extended family. But I never put in an effort to understand the child or try to reach out to her or include her in our plays. I regret that now. Having a child with special needs gives you a beautiful perspective in understanding and accepting the individuality of every child. Without a child with autism I would have never known what beautiful minds and hearts they posses. You just need to love them and they will return the same.

3). There is more to life than you see – as my life changed, slowly the tunnel through which I was seeing vanished and I realized that there are more than one directions to look at future. Being a computer science student, my goal and expected future was to be working in that field and the rest seemed not up to the mark. I still look back at that future with an unfulfilled wish, but I at the same time realize that there are many other things to do which can be much more rewarding and satisfying personally than working for some foreign client. The narrow view of what life and success means has expanded, all because Tuhina showed me an alternate view.

I am not a very good student and still have a long way to go, but she is a good teacher and eventually I hope I will be a better person than what I had expected to be 10 years back.