At the age of 5 years old, I got on my very first airplane, Pan American airline’s 747 jet, with my mummy and daddy to migrate from Karachi to London in search of a better life, opportunities, and education. With nervousness, ambition, and a heart full of hope, we dove into valley of the unknown. My years in London were bitter sweet living the life of an extremely poor immigrant where my parents worked 7 days a week at Commodore Hotel in the upscale neighborhood of Kensington just around the corner from Kensington Palace and Hyde Park. For just a few British Pounds a month, they worked before sun up until the twilight hours managing the hotel which included not only working the front desk, but also scrubbing toilets, making up resident rooms, doubling up as an electrician, plumber, handyman, running the restaurant, doing every job possible and living in a tiny studio apartment with bare bones furniture and a communal toilet and bath we had to share with strangers. I learned English for the first time, the fifth language my ears would grow accustomed to. I watched my parents work extraordinarily hard in a selfless way, yet with gratitude and humble heart. Never having enough to eat, but always charitable to those who had less.
The sweetness of our life came in the form of an extremely cheap rent controlled studio in the most posh London neighborhood of Kensington where everyone dressed in the most trendiest fashions of the ’70’s. I spent my lonely days with this amazing new music called Rock and Roll, jamming to the beats of Abba, Queen, The Bee Gees, The Beatles, and of course Elvis!
Those few years of hardship built the strongest set of characters and values that proudly make me who I am today in addition to the close bond nurtured my dear parents. What I didn’t know then, our hardship mixed with gratitude, hope, optimism, compassion for each other, and faith for another brighter day would create a sort of resilience that has spanned the decades and several more moves.
“When we learn how to become resilient, we learn how to embrace the beautifully broad spectrum of the human experience.” –Jaeda Dewalt
This past summer, we boarded another jet airplane, this time from our comfortable home in Texas back to London, just the three of us, returning back to our old studio apartment off of Kensington high street, back to the hotel my parents labored day in and out, back to my beloved Fox School where I learned to speak English and made my first best friend, back to Hyde Park where I spent my afternoons playing alone using my imagination. As I walked the hallways of our old hotel, I could still hear the beats of Abba and Elvis competing for my attention. As we walked the paved streets, with each footstep, we felt the suffering, the joy, the tears, and the giggles of our previous life. We felt the fatigued muscles of the 1970’s while the energy of today. It was such an enriching journey with grief and laughter, gratitude and blessings, wet eyes and chuckles.
“Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” -Nelson Mandela
I am TRULY GRATEFUL for the hard work and adversity that my parents endured. I am TRULY GRATEFUL to be blessed with these amazing humans as my dear mum and dad. I am TRULY GRATEFUL for the love and lasting core memories. For all of this, I am TRULY GRATEFUL!
“Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.” -unknown source