I Thought I Was Brave

I thought I was brave but that was just a misconception. or you could call it a hallucination on my part. I, wrapped up in my cozy cocoon, hardly knew what it’s like to spread your wings for the first time and find that one of them is broken. I thought that I could handle failures, malfunctions and rejections. I, like many others, was under this false belief, until I joined my mother one Sunday afternoon to volunteer for the Children’s Cancer Care in Delhi.

 Turns out, I am not equipped to handle anything. All these cancer patients, many who were around my age, are what brave is. They had to drop out of school and make the Cancer Care Centre their home. Their young eyes expressed the want for a normal childhood yet they were staid. They knew what was wrong with them, all too well. But they refused to accept pity and held their heads high with pride. The pain that drained their small bodies refused to let them live and yet with hardly any energy left, they fought like brave warriors.

They weren’t depressed or sad instead they were grateful for the life they were given because they understood how precious life is. They are not scared of death because their brave hearts tell them that whether they make it or not is not what matters, it’s making the most of the time that they’ve got.

 They are brave because they count their blessings and we easily forget to. They are brave because they make the most of their moments and we crib and take things for granted. They are brave because they don’t give up till their last breath and we make new goals every day and abandon them. They are brave because they face life head on and we still hold on to our parent’s hands. They are brave because they make their own happiness and we look for it in materialistic things.

I thought I was brave turns out, that in this big world where we think we are huge, there are some of us who have hearts much bigger than all our egos.