When Sean proved the point: the only time I felt that it is worth paying for my parking ticket

I now begin to realize how my parents have felt about me when they saw me performing well at my primary and high school days. I also see how they may have felt when I received awards at school prize giving ceremonies. I realize this only now because I saw my son, Sean, winning a gold medal at Cantonal (Canton of Vaud, Switzerland) Judo tournament for young people held on the 8th June, 2012 in Lausanne. I also felt ashamed that I did not trust his talent at Judo and I decided to discontinue his judo classes about two years ago. This year he continued his judo lessons through his school, when they made judo as one of the sports they would learn. His teacher gave the students the leaflet about the tournament. Straight away he wanted to enroll and Carmen enrolled him. He was the only student from his class who joined the competition.
Sean is a skinny boy. He looks like me when I was his age. He is also very emotional: often resort to crying when things go wrong or when he does something wrong and cannot defend his actions. He was telling Carmen that he wanted to achieve something. He knew he was going to get a medal anyway if he took part in the judo tournament. His objective was to just to get a medal for participating at this competition. I did my part in not scheduling any business trip around the time of this competition. I took him early morning on the Saturday 8th June to Lausanne. We also had to drag Aakashi, who went reluctantly with us. We got him dressed in his judo attire and sent him in. We stood where the spectators were at this huge auditorium in Lausanne. The person who organized the event was Swiss judo champion who have won the bronze medal at the Beijing 2008 Olympics and gold medal at European championships. I was amused at the way he was directing all volunteers, holding a microphone in one hand and holding his little daughter in the other hand. Sean was just sitting there on a bench anxiously. I went to him and told him one thing: “forget everything, forget the whole world, and just concentrate on the moves of your opponent. Do not get distracted. Just focus on the one thing you will be doing.”
A few moments later came his first fight. He had to fight a young boy of his age and weight who was already a yellow belt holder. Sean was wearing just a white belt. He was making a lot of effort to not to let the opponent tackle him or get control over him. A few minutes into the fight, he manage to push his opponent to the ground and scored a point. This went on and he managed to put him down two more times, and the match was over and he was declared winner. I saw a feeling of joy and surprise on his face. I went and talked to him and he told me, “you know? I won one fight!” I told him, we know and we were watching but were not cheering for him deliberately to no to distract him. Then Carmen and I asked him to drink some water, but he did not want to. We managed to push some chocolates into his mouth and forced him to take a few sips of water. After a half an hour or so, came his second fight and he managed to put his opponent down three times again and won the second fight. Another thirty minutes on was his third fight. This was a tough one. The opponent, who was half Japanese, was tough. None of them could put the other down and the time was up and it was a draw. Thereafter, was his last and final fight and he again managed to put his opponent down a couple of times and won again.

Then there was this long wait for the award ceremony. The first would win a gold medal, second a silver and the rest would win bronze medals. I knew straight away that he has won the gold. But he probably did not know and was not sure what he was going to get. There was a podium for 1, 2 and 3 positions, number 1 platform being the highest. Then came the time and his name was announced as the first. I saw the joy and a kind of disbelief in him and he climbed on the number one platform with great difficulty (it was high) and stood there with a broadest smile I have ever seen on his face and raising his right hand with victory sign.

I have never seen him so happy. He later met his judo teacher at school and I saw his teacher was very happy about his achievement too and told him, \”wear the medal when you come to the judo class next week.\” It was a feeling of achieving his well-deserved victory and proving me (and others) a point that ‘he is capable of what he was up to.’ That was the moment I felt so proud of him. I also felt very bad that I did not trust his talent. I embraced him and kissed his head and told him how proud I was of him. He was elated with joy. He was wearing his gold medal. Carmen was not near by and called her to tell her Sean won a gold medal. She was elated and shouting with joy! He has won the gold!! Now I feel very guilty that I discontinued his judo classes. He made his point, loud and clear. He also demonstrated his determination.

After the ceremony I gave him a cold can of Ginger Beer and he accepted it gladly. We walked back to the car park to see a pink color parking ticket. I have mistaken the car park to unpaid one and I was wrong. This was only time I received the parking ticket gladly telling myself, \”it is worth it!\”