Along the way

A single mattress was positioned in front of the telly with a clean sheet and pillows with fresh floral-scented pillow cases. The mattress was pushed to the white wall in contrast of my face, covered with dry blood, blue black eye and my huge upper lips (take that Angelina Jolie!). The programmes changed on the telly but I was unable to pay attention to any of it. The like of the programmes on the telly was the same as groups of people took turn to sit, 6 to 10 people in one go, with mixture of expressions on their faces, sad with tears, worried with thousands of questions and restless at the sight of the injuries on my both arms. There I was, sitting with my back against the wall facing those people who were gathering since the news spread- trying, very hard, to put a smile on my ragged face.

I could hear larger crowd gathering at the common area of my mom's house, in the living room even in... oh my... the kitchen. Some of my mom's friends were helping her preparing some tea for the visitors - this includes some munchies to go along with it. My sister-in-law was one of those people who kept on going inside and out of the kitchen putting more and more munchies as the piles of people waiting for their turn to see me. As for my mom, she tried to entertain as many people as she could while answering one thousand and one questions from voices in random parts of the house. She held back her tears most of the times but got emotional when people who are quite close to her started to cry when she greeted them.

There were many people, some I recognized and some were in the blurry part of the mind - friends, relatives as far as from my hometown to neighbours, visited me with great concern for me. The thought that kept on repeating in my head was nothing but "What did I do to deserve all of this concerns from all of this people?" and I answered easy, "I don't deserve this, God is being kind to you,". At that moment, it touched me. God wants me to know that the most important thing is not what you chase in life, but what you gather along the way. It got me thinking, at the end of the day, these people are the ones you need along the way in achieving and celebrating your dreams: loving family, good friends and caring people around you - not your posh two-door ride, or a huge crib, fancy gadgets or flawless fame. I was blessed in a way that I have a lot of them (friends and family that love me back rather than stick with me when they need me and throw you away when they are done with you) and I can't quite thank them enough for making me feel loved, cared and concerned for at that moment. It is suck to think that the only people who cared for you are only your parents, your wife and your 2 children and it stops there, less then the amount of fingers on your body. That scares me - big time.