The Rookie and The Champ
All I knew of the Champ, I had heard in passing; comments I overheard from the coach, or from boxers in the locker room. I never asked them. They wouldn’t tell me, anyway.
They snickered and smirked, remarking “even a Champion of Africa couldn’t make it over here, in the proper circuit.”
Luckily I got to see their faces after the second world title. Ever so often Coach would ask how the Champ’s family are and stuff like that. The reply was never elaborate, just that they were well, they were doing fine.
When the Champ first came over they paired with me. I was the supposedly the next biggest thing, and the Champ could learn a thing off me, and I off them. In reality, I was always the student in the relationship, and what I learnt off the Champ was more than anything Coach had ever taught me.
Even when Champ gained the title, moved to the elite sessions, press in their face and all that; they came back for me. Training extra hours just because I asked, because I was supposed to be the next biggest thing, and I had my first big fight around the corner. I took the Champ aside, I wanted to push myself. I got the Champ to train with me, double sessions, pushing myself twice as hard. At one point I even wore them out, the Champ buckling from a cramp I’d been working them so hard.
I was focused; I was determined; I was on the rise; I was ready.
The day came around.
We were twined in occasion. For me, it was my first big fight, for them it was their title defence.
I fought and I fought hard, it was a gruelling match but I won. I got the knock out I the 6th. I had my moment, the moment I had been working towards for so long, and I was basking in it. That night was a blur.
The next morning I woke up in a hyperactive alertness, I switched on the news to witness my hero’s story, to see my name in lights.
The Champ was hospitalised.
In the 6th round they took a heavy blow to the temple. Commentators and experts analysed the punch, wondering how could this happen?
“It looked as if their leg cramped up when going in for a hook, and they fell into the counter.”
When I walked into that hospital room, and I saw you so weak, I saw it all. I saw the pain you were in, I saw all the pain I had caused. My selfishness, my blind, toxic, ambition. Your sacrifice. You worked so hard, but never for you. Fighting not for recognition, not for the accomplishments; you fought for your family.
You didn’t speak about how you send money back to Africa to help the family you left behind; you didn’t complain about training the extra hours, just to help my training; you never took time off. I never took a step back to ask, just to take an interest, to give back, to say thank you. And this is where it left you.
At the end of March my Mum was admitted into hospital for contracting a serious infection.
An infection that stopped her boxing, one of her passions.
An infection that could have taken her life.
When I walked into that hospital room, and I saw you so weak, I saw it all. I saw the pain you were in, I saw all the pain I had caused. My selfishness, my blind, toxic, ambition. Your sacrifice. You worked so hard, but never for you. Fighting not for recognition, not for the accomplishments; you fought for your family.
It took seeing you in a hospital room, seeing you weak, to see it all. To see how bad I let our relationship get, when I couldn’t even be bothered to call you once in a month, just to say hi. It took seeing how easy it is to lose my mother, to understand that I nearly lost my mother.
I was so engrossed in my own career and personal advances, I forgot, I chose to forget, my family.
I was clouded in a capitalistic world view, in an individualist culture, I put myself before the ones that put me before them.
No-one is greater than anyone else, and prior to this moment in life, I didn’t show my mother the respect that she deserves. If we don’t take the time to tell those close to us that we love them, and they’re appreciated, we may never get to.
I’m sorry mum, and I love you. From the Rookie to the Champ.
