Tag Archives: father-daughter relationships

Day 275

One should see the world, and see himself as a scale with an equal balance of good and evil. When he does one good deed the scale is tipped to the good – he and the world is saved. When he does one evil deed the scale is tipped to the bad – he and the world is destroyed. – Maimonides

It’s 7: 29 PM on day 275 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself a banana for breakfast, make sandwiches for Virginia’s Sandwich Run – I decided to make the sandwiches during the week because I never know if our housekeeper will show up on Saturdays anyway I would like to take this opportunity to thank my sister for helping out today … I love you sweetheart you are truly a masterpiece in the making 🙂 – tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – no luck 🙁 – watch TV, feed myself rice and curry for lunch, watch some more TV feed myself a banana for dinner and brush my teeth once more.

A few months ago I promised myself that I would donate 25% of my earning to charity when I started earning some money and although I can hear my father in the back of my head saying are you nuts you can’t give away 25% of your money this is only your second paycheck I will stay true to the promise I made to myself because at the end of the day if all we do is take and take and take some more there will come a day when the world will have nothing left to give. Are you tipping the scale to the good by giving to the world more than you take?

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

If you’ve given to my cause or you can’t give now, please help me by sharing my cause with others. You can tweet about it like my friend Stan Faryna. This is the tweet he uses: @Nisha360 is a brave, smart young woman trying to make a better world for us all. Please help her do an amazing thing. http://bit.ly/hC7vOu

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!

Day 273

Day 225

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The bible is my saving grace – that’s what I learned today 🙂

It’s 8: 42 PM on day 225 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself a sweet potato with a chilli, onion and yoghurt dip for breakfast, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign for a few hours – @morsemusings (Dawn) made another donation – thanks Dawn you are truly awesome 🙂 – feed myself rice and curry for lunch, watch TV, tweet about my campaign some more – no further luck – feed myself rice and curry for dinner and continue to tweet about my campaign – still no further luck.

Today we were meant to get our passports renewed for our trip to India this summer but it didn’t occur to my father that he would actually have to be seen with me for that to happen since my mother had to stay at home with my grandma so he called off the whole thing and decided to go get my wheelchair’s belt fixed with my sister which was totally fine with me only my mother wasn’t having any of it and said she –referring to my sister – stays I’ll go with you to which my father responded in anger saying you’re not going come ‘on Nisha let’s go and as I sat in the car looking at him in the garden feeling hurt that he was taking me out grudgingly I remembered a verse in the bible and thought bless and do not curse. Do you use the bible as a weapon or a shield?

Day 221

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Happiness comes from within. It is not dependent on external things or on other people. You become vulnerable and can be easily hurt when your feelings of security and happiness depend on the behaviour and actions of other people. Never give your power to anyone else.
— Brian Weiss

It’s 9: 18 PM on day 221 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself a banana for breakfast, go to the Good Friday Service – the sermon was about the last words Jesus uttered on the cross and how he taught and lived forgiveness – watch TV, feed myself Batura – deep fried bread – for lunch, send a friend of mine a donation request on Facebook – still waiting for a response… fingers-crossed 🙂 – tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign for a few hours – no luck – feed myself custard for dinner and tweet about my campaign some more – still no luck but hey I gave my all 🙂

Today I woke up happy and free even though my father refused to go to church with us because I knew that what he did or didn’t do had nothing to do with me. Are things out of your control causing you misery?

Day 202

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You should do what you know is right regardless of what anybody else says – that’s what I learned today 🙂

It’s 3: 10 PM on day 202 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself a banana for breakfast, survive a five hour road trip back to my hometown of Lusikisiki (see picture of our journey below) and eat rice and curry for lunch – I let my mother feed me just this once because I didn’t want to make a mess in my aunt’s living room.

Today when I was in the car on our road trip a friend of mine send me a text via my sister’s cell phone and my father overheard me saying to my sister tell her I got the bread and he asked what’s this about bread so I reluctantly told him that my friend and I were approaching bakeries to see if they’d be willing to donate bread to enable me to make more sandwiches for my housekeeper’s community (if you have no idea what I’m talking about refer to ‘Day 184’) and all he could think to say was I will buy the bread otherwise people will think we are eating the donated bread and in that moment I came to a maddening realization that all my father cared about was his reputation. Are you guided by other people’s opinions or your own intuition?

My 16-year old sister - Neethu - and 10-year-old brother - Kevin - in the backseat of our car

The security area of Nelson Mandela's house in Qunu - his hometown

Day 187

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People who feel insecure within themselves will try to tear you down – that’s what I learned today 🙁

It’s 10: 58 PM on day 187 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, make sandwiches for the people in our housekeeper’s neighborhood (if you have no idea what I am talking about refer to ‘Day 184’) – it was a relatively drama-free morning with the only snag being that there wasn’t enough foil paper but that too was not a problem without a solution we decided to stack the sandwiches on top of each other – a HUGE thanks must go to mom who helped me every step of the way – I LOVE you mommy 🙂 – feed myself a bread and jam sandwich for breakfast while watching TV – food tastes better when you eat after you give to other people 🙂 – feed myself rice and curry for lunch and tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign only stopping to feed myself Spring rolls for dinner – @sharoneden (Sharon) made a donation of $53.85 – thanks again Sharon 🙂

Today as I sat at our dining table buttering the bread for the sandwiches my mom and I were making my dad came up behind me and said why don’t you do two first and in that moment he made me feel so incompetent so I said if you’re not doing anything shut up and although I don’t regret saying it I do regret the way I said it because those words were unbecoming of me. Are your insecurities causing you to be mean?

Day 169

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Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. — Randy Pausch (The Last Lecture)

It’s 9: 04 PM on day 169 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself a banana for breakfast, watch TV while feeding myself a chicken polony sandwich for a snack, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign for a few hours – no luck – feed myself rice and curry for lunch, exercise for 5 minutes, tweet about my campaign some more – still no luck – send the priest that we had dinner with about a week ago a link to my campaign – hopefully he won’t tell my parents because my explicitly told me not to ask people in our community for donations but I don’t know what else to do it’s not like I can spend the whole day at the mall asking people for donations or organize a fundraiser all by myself – they would KILL ME –figuratively speaking – if they found out I sent the link to my campaign to a priest with the intention of getting a donation – feed myself rice and butternut for dinner and watch The Oprah Winfrey Show.

I have always had this theory that everything you go through has something to teach you and looking back now I can prove it: cerebral palsy has taught the power of perception – all my life I had wanted to be like everybody else but then I realized that maybe just maybe God made me different so that I could have the freedom to be extraordinary – my tumultuous relationship with my father has taught me to love myself from within – ever since I could remember I had been waiting for my father to look me in the eye and say I’m sorry for treating you differently just because you are different I love you just the way you are and then one day not so long ago I decided to stop waiting for my father to come to his senses and start accepting myself and I won’t lie knowing that you don’t need acceptance from anybody else and living it are two very different things there are some days when I ache to be seen by my father not as a disabled person who needs help all the time but rather as a human being who needs to know that her daddy loves her – and last but not least my philanthropic efforts have taught me perseverance –before I started my Clean Water For All Campaign I had tried to raise $1 000 for UNICEF I must have asked all the companies in South Africa all of whom sent me long but polite rejection letters saying thanks but no thanks and as I look back on it today I realize that the reason I didn’t reach my goal last time was because I gave up too easily something as you can see I have not done this time around. Have you learned more from an experience than you have from actually getting what you wanted? 🙂