Born healthy like everyone else, Tran Thanh Son (30 years old, from Thap Cham, Ninh Thuan) developed a fever with convulsions at nine months old and was left paralysed in all four limbs. From then on, his life was bound to a wheelchair. Overcoming many difficulties and studying hard, Tran Thanh Son has just received two master's degrees.
LESSONS FROM FATHER
When Son was nine months old, he kept running a fever. Doctors at the provincial hospital diagnosed him with meningitis. After 20 days of treatment, his condition did not improve but worsened. His family decided to take him to Saigon for treatment. There, doctors diagnosed him with polio fever, but because he was admitted late, they could not intervene in time. Once the fever had subsided, Son could have recovered on his own with only mild after-effects, but because the earlier treatment had been for the wrong illness, he was left paralysed in all four limbs.
Son said innocently: “Luckily it did not affect my brain; as long as my head is fine, that is good.”
From the day Son fell ill, his father took early retirement to care for him. Son remembers his first day in grade 1: his twisted body could not sit on a bicycle, so his older sister had to follow and hold him while his father carried him to school. On the way, people stared, and Son insisted on going home, but his father was determined to take his son to school. When he first got to know books, while his classmates carefully formed each letter, Son could not hold a pen at all. His paralysed hands would not obey the little boy, and the pen fell to the floor as soon as he picked it up. His father patiently taught Son to hold a pen. To this day, Son still remembers his father's words: “Able-bodied people who do not study can still grow up and work as builders' labourers to earn a living. But you, if you do not study, what will you do to support yourself? You have only one path, and that is studying.” Although he did not fully understand his father's words at the time, his father's eyes and actions motivated Son. He began practising holding a pen, and three months later Son could write.
For the 12 years Son went to school, his father took him there and back. He was always there for his son, sharing every little thing. A former soldier, he used discipline to help his son train. He set goals for Son and made him strive for them. Son said honestly: “At the time, I often wondered why my father was so harsh with me. But when I grew up, I understood that if he had not been firm, and had only looked at my appearance and spoiled me with love, I would probably not be where I am today. My father's love helped me become confident and strong, overcoming my feelings of inferiority and my illness to rise in life.”
Son's biggest obstacle was that all his personal care, from eating and bathing to using the toilet, depended on his family. At home, his parents and older sister looked after him, but at school Son had to “rely on” his friends. So Son had to take the initiative to talk to his classmates and make friends. Son shared: “To become close to people, I first have to put aside my self-doubt and feelings of inferiority. Only if I open my heart will others share with me.” Perhaps thanks to this, at every level of schooling Son had a few very close friends beside him to support him when he needed it.
INTELLECT MAKES UP FOR APPEARANCE
The older he grew, the more Son understood his father's words, and the more he longed to perfect himself through intellect. For Son, that was how to repay his parents and show gratitude to the friends who had stood by him. Throughout his 12 years at school, Son always strove to be an excellent student, and his well-deserved reward was admission to the University of Natural Sciences, to the admiration of his teachers and friends.
But an unexpected blow struck the young man: the day Son learned he had passed the university entrance exam was also the day his father was found to have cancer. Son said he felt very frightened and lost at the time, even though his father remained optimistic and encouraged him. Son remembers clearly that his father passed away 13 days after Son graduated from university. Son said, choking with emotion: “Before he died, my father left me a profound lesson in determination and willpower. It was the image of him fighting to prolong his life for four years, instead of just a few months to half a year as the doctors had predicted. I still take that as a lesson for myself when I feel discouraged and hopeless.”
After his father died, just as Son was being turned down for jobs by companies because he was a person with a disability, Son felt as if he had fallen into an abyss, lost and disheartened. For a whole month he did nothing, sometimes drifting into thoughts of death. But then he realised in time that he could not die. He owed so much: he owed his mother, who worked early and late to raise him; he owed his father, who sacrificed his whole career to care for him; and he owed many friends. Son pulled himself together and looked for a way forward. Unable to get a job at a company, he turned to teaching IT and English and doing translation. Nurturing his dream of further study, last June Son became the first person with a disability to receive two master's degrees, in information systems from the University of Natural Sciences and in business administration from the University of Economics.
Although he has achieved some success, Son sometimes cannot avoid feelings of loneliness and sadness. “There are sorrows I can deal with, but there are others to do with how to treat people — they are not about expertise, but about experience, and I don't know who to share them with,” Son said sadly. At those times, Son goes to his father's grave, which for him is a way to recharge his determination to rise up.
Speaking of his relationship of more than five years with his girlfriend Thanh T., Son smiled: “My girlfriend will not be taken out for coffee, meals or walks by her boyfriend like other couples. But I believe I can ensure a materially comfortable life for my family. That is also how I want to make up for what she has missed out on. Not only materially, I also have a sincere heart, empathy, sharing and love. When he was alive, my father told me that my parents would one day pass away and my sisters would have their own families; only a wife and children would live with me until the end of my life. I think it is hard to keep a family home intact until old age even for a non-disabled person, and even harder for a person with a disability like me. I know I need to try very hard, and I believe sincere feelings will be answered with sincere feelings.”
Linh Giang – http://phunuonline.com.vn