An Opportunity for Growth

Nourhan Elsayed

1. When I was nine years old, my mom dropped my two brothers and a small backpackcrammed with clothes off at my dad’s house. As my brothers walked inside, I proclaimed that I wasn’t leaving the car. After five minutes of crying, arguing and finally compromising, I decided that I’d go inside if my mom came first thing in the morning. She kissed my head and promised to be back before I woke up. After a week of no contact, it was evident that my mom wasn’t returning.

 2. My peripheral world was puzzled by her actions. I can remember the “She was such a good mom” whispers of my guidance counselor. By the end of that year, everything in my life had changed. I was now living with my dad, who, to that point, had remained absent from my life.Other than during the moment before my mother left, no one ever saw me shed a tear. Upon recognizing that our lives were about to take a 180-degree turn, my dad encouraged us to maintain as much normalcy as possible. He prompted us to remain grateful to God that we had ended up together. In retrospect, my dad probably did the best thing he could have done for us at that time. We were always encouraged to focus on constructing the most out of the situation at hand. Resultantly, we acclimated quickly to the new life we were now living. Looking back, I’mastonished that, while it seemed everything in our lives was changing, nothing had changedwhatsoever.

 3. During my senior year of high school, I started to revisit the memory I had of my mother.Before moving on to a new chapter of my life, I wanted to understand the most ubiquitous and unfinished part of my childhood. It soon became obvious that what I needed was to grieve my mom.

 4. By the time I accepted that I had emotions that needed to be grieved, I had already arrived on Duke’s campus. Although the typical signs of grief were there, I didn’t know anyone well enough — and no one knew me well enough — to discharge some of the emotions I was hesitantly feeling. Luckily, at the beginning of my spring semester, my participation in Kathy Rudy’s Baldwin Scholars freshman seminar validated the importance of grief. My interaction with other Baldwin’s allowed me the ability to logically and emotionallymake sense of what I was still feeling after nine years of ambiguous absence. With every step along the way, it became clear that letting go of my mother was the only way I would be able to live my life — a life in which I believed myself to be more than the daughter who wasn’t good enough to be loved by her mother.

 5. This summer brought clarity, and I was able to make sense of some of the things in my life after having grieved over the memory of my mother. Most notably, I let go of the promise I had once made her that I would become a doctor. I convinced myself that an insult from someone else was unfair, and I walked away from a toxic friendship. This summer, I let myself give up on a task when it became too much to handle. In the past, I would have unconsciously internalized any negative treatment as an accreditation of my faults; I would have refused to fail, because I once thought that doing so would affirm that I was, indeed, unworthy.

 6. Last week, I received notice of speculation that my mother may have passed away. As I heard this news, I was shockingly unaffected by the loss of the very woman who is often recognized as the most important person in people’s lives, and I understand why: I had already grieved over my mother. I had already let go of the pressures she had imposed uponmy life.

 7. Duke has taught me time and time again that we all carry baggage. We all ache of pains we choose not to understand, we all wear scars we choose to perfectly conceal and we all battle wars we don’t even realize we’re battling. And while there is value in leaving the past behind, it’s important that the past be dealt with in order for it to be understood. It’s imperative to acknowledge that strength is more than just dealing with those day-to-day lows.

 8. Most importantly, it’s important to acknowledge pain as an opportunity for growth.

【译文】

成长的机会

诺汉•艾尔赛义德

1. 9岁那年，母亲把我和我的两个兄弟还有一个塞满衣服的小背包送到了爸爸的住处。 当兄弟们都走进屋子里的时候，我坚称我不下车。 在哭闹了5分钟之后，我最终妥协了，心想如果明天妈妈一大早就来接我，那我现在就进去。 她亲了亲我的额头，答应会在我醒来之前回来。 然而接下来的一个星期母亲音信全无，显然她不会再回来了。

2. 母亲的行为让我对周边世界产生了困惑。 我还记得我的指导老师低声对我说：“她真是一位好母亲。” 那年年底，我生活中的一切都变了。我和父亲生活在了一起，在那之前父亲并不曾存在于我的生活中。 除了母亲离开前的那 一刻，没有人曾看到我掉过一滴眼泪。 爸爸意识到我们的生活将发生180度改变时，鼓励我们一定要尽力保持正常的生活状态。 他提醒我们要对上帝心存感激，因为我们终于在一起了。 回顾往事，父亲在那个时候可能为我们做了他力所能及的一切。 父亲总是鼓励我们多从当前的生活中营造最好的东西。 因此，我们很快适应了当时的新生活。 当我回想过去，令我惊讶的是其实一切都没有改变，尽管看起来我们的生活样样在变。

3. 高中最后那年，我开始重拾关于母亲的记忆。 在开启生活新篇章之前，我希望弄明白童年中平凡而又不完美的部分。 很快我便清楚地意识到我需要的是表达对母亲的哀怨。

4. 当我意识到有些悲伤的情感需要释放出来时，我已经来到杜克大学，成为了一名大学生。 当时我表现出各种悲伤难过的典型症状，但我还不够了解周围的任何人，也没有人足够了解我，所以一些莫名的忧伤无法倾吐。 幸运的是：在春季学期初，我参与了凯西•鲁迪的鲍尔温学士新生研讨会，确认了这种伤感的重要性。 和其他鲍尔温学士们的互动给予了我一种能力，让我能够理性和感性地理解为什么忘怀不了母亲离去9年时间里若隐若现的那份伤感。 一路走来，我开始明白：唯一能让我开始自己人生的方式便是放下对母亲离去的那份伤感。在这样的人生中，我相信自己不仅仅是一个因表现得不够好而得不到妈妈爱的女儿。 

5. 今天夏天，我豁然开朗，因为释怀了对母亲的回忆，我悟出了生命中的一些道理。 最值得一提的是我放弃了曾经向妈妈许下的要当医生的诺言。我使自己相信他人对我的侮辱是不公平的，并远离狐朋狗友。 今年夏天，我主动放弃了自己力所不及的一项任务。 过去，我总会下意识地将各种负面待遇看成是自己能力不足的证据；过去我会拒绝失败，因为我曾以为失败便表明自己确实无能。

6. 上周，我听到了我母亲可能已经去世的传言。 得知这消息后，令我震惊的是这个常被视为自己生命中最重要的人的离去没有对我产生任何影响。我知道我为什么会这样：我曾经深深地为母亲难过。 我已经将她带给我的生活的压力统统卸下了。

7. 杜克大学一次又一次地教导了我：我们每个人都背负着包袱。 我们每个人都痛苦，却不愿去理解它；我们都有伤痕，却宁愿将伤掩得严严实实；我们都在战斗，却甚至不知道自己在战斗。 虽然释怀过往是有价值的，但正视过去才能理解过去。 我们必须承认：坚强不仅仅是每天应对那些沮丧时刻。

8. 最为重要的是：我们务必承认痛苦是成长的机会。