When I was in secondary school and we were about to graduate we were asked to name our role models for publication along with our final remarks in the school yearbook. So many of us had written Ben Carson as a role model in spite of the fact that we wanted to become computer engineers, lawyers, journalists and other professions not in the line of medicine. His relentless attitude to always be the best he could be was a paramount reason for making him a role model.
This trend also didn't stop in my set of graduating students though. Set after set, year after year, Ben Carson has been a role model to a lot of us. I can remember reading his Gifted Hands and being like "If he could turn out the way he has, what prevents me from being my best?". I have also read his book about taking risks and i picked a lot from it too. Ben Carson was able to make a lot of difference in my life and the life of others too and his mum Sonya Carson played an important role in his life which is why she's my WCW this week.
Well enough on Ben Carson. Our focus today is on Sonya Carson. Let me start with an introduction of what her life was like. She was raised up in foster homes, had only a third grade education, got married to a man 15 years older than she was as a means of escaping the poverty, abuse and suffering at home. They had a good marriage for a while with him being attentive and treating her like his "little China doll" till they started having kids. He started growing distant, being secretive and neglectful, not coming home and answering whispered calls at night. Eventually he left his home with Mrs Sonya for his other wife and Sonya had the responsibility of taking care of two sons all by herself with the third grade education she had. She struggled with two to three jobs to fend and make ends meet for herself and her kids.
Her motto is "Learn to do your best, God will do the rest". This motto evidently helped her in good and bad times as you'd see if you read the book Gifted Hands. There was even a point in her life where she went for treatment in a mental facility for her anxiety and depression issues and left her two sons in her sister's care along with her sister's husband. She came back determined to give her kids a better life encouraged them to be better than they were when their school reports were unsatisfactory. She came up with different methods of doing that from reducing TV time to making them read a book and writing a report on the the books they read, making them read their reports to her 'cause she couldn't read that well. Her persistence and perseverance began to pay off and their school reports started improving. Ben Carson became the top in his class, he got into Yale, graduated and we all know the story from there. Curtis turned out good too although not quite as popular as his brother.
Moral lessons people? She wasn't really educated yet she took an interest in her kids education and this interest she took in their school work helped them a lot. This lesson should out to all the "unlettered and ordinary" parents out there. She also showed that a person's willpower can go a long way in determining how well they'd do in life. She didn't give up when left by her husband and her determination rubbed off positively on her kids. She was tough, resilient and it paid off and those are lessons for every one out there. Keep up the fight and it will pay off eventually. XoXo people.
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