Family Structure, PART 2

 

Family Structure, PART 2.

“With the support of family, one can win a losing battle. But without family’s support, even a winning battle can be lost” – Anagha Dudhavadkar,

Today, it’s ROUND 2 in our FAMILY SUPPORT STRUCTURE but this time around, we’d like to highlight an African teenager who migrated to the United States with zero English except “COACH I GO NBA”.

Hell, how can a totally non-English speaking African [from the far flung country of Gabon] get to have the guts and gumption to migrate to the U.S. with no family support structure at all ? No way, Jose. No way CHRIS SILVA, the Gabonese basketball player in his teens can survive life in the U.S. until and unless he can have that family support system we keep harping on.

Family support indeed he got, right from landing at the U.S. port of entry for the first time. And it was no less than Basketball Coach Tommy Sacks who met the young Gabonese Chris Silva who was just around 14 years old then. First time they met, the only English words he could utter was “COACH I GO NBA”.

From that day onwards, Coach Sacks and his family brought Chris Silva under his care, mentorship, guardianship, all rolled into one. As the adoptive father of Chris, Coach Sacks micro-managed his adoptive child on every single aspect, especially, amongst others, his academic performance in school. And when Chris graduated from high school, Coach Sacks and his wife were ‘proud parents’. [on a SAD note, Coach Sacks suffered a cardiac arrest and died early this week, so Chris remains very extremely distraught to say the least]. But before Coach Sacks met his very untimely death, Chris managed to achieve that breakthrough in the NBA when he was awarded a full guaranteed contract by the most-sought Miami Heat team.

What does this prove to us. You can be as gifted as you can be and you can be oozing with a natural talent but without the family support structure, there’s just no way you can take off but if you do take off, how far can you go up. Surely, you will never reach that cruising level you deserve. Unfortunately, if you don’t reach your ideal cruising level, you can never get that second wind as you try to keep and maintain that momentum. Worst, that flight in life may even get aborted.

So, this is another no-brainer.

The role of a family as one’s support structure is irrefutable by all means. To quote Rita Ora, “I don’t know what it feels like not to have a great family support system – I was lucky to have that.

Let’s thank someone up there if we’re surviving now despite all our travails in life, all because of our family support structure.

Frankly, bluntly, this global pandemic is really a blessing in disguise because the past 3 months have become the ‘payback time’, for us to give back to our family all the credit that is due them,