Giving his best to his son

I once knew a school mate who was aiming high becoming a long distance runner. Every evening without fail, Ganesh can be seen jogging from his house nearby the school and heading up to the main town centre. All in he ran an average of 21km every evenings and sometimes varying the distance if there was a need to cut down the distance due to physical fatigue.

Most importantly, every evening whilst Ganesh was running his routines, his father would be tailing behind him on the family motorcycle clocking his time and giving him pointers to improve his running form.

Every evening, rain or shine, I'd see father and son working on the running routine whilst I was headed home from school taking the rail transit.

At that point in time, he was already representing my school for the long distance running repertoire and in many instances begging the gold medals as he ran the events. Last I heard just after I left secondary school, he was already offered a scholarship by one of the top local universities. His father couldn't be prouder with his achievements.

He grew up in a family who lived under mediocre terms, a father who was an assistant in an Indian spice mill and a mother who was full time at home taking care of his other 2 siblings. Being the eldest son of 3 siblings, he had to make sure he could graduate into a stable job to assist his parents in bringing the other two up. Running wasn't going to be just an evening hobby for him, it meant his future and his siblings' future. He knew he had to run, and run well at that.

His father knew if Ganesh was going to even stand a chance to perform well, Ganesh was going to need his support. He knew all too well that in school, there were other more affluent children whose parents could afford proper training and coaches. For Ganesh, he knew he would have to fill in the empty spaces as a father, coach and training mate. Starting of the training regime meant he had to learn how to coach his son with sufficient strictness, yet know how to show affection as a father and know how to be competitive as a training mate. As an assistance in a spice mill, those were the exact three things he had no idea about.

As father, he would have wanted to have money to hire a coach, to put Ganesh in a proper training school to be the best but he knew he couldn't afford it. So he made up his mind to give Ganesh his best.

His best meant stealing quick reads from nutrition books available at bookstores over the weekends, spending evenings planning out running routes for Ganesh, timing Ganesh, ascertaining areas of weakness then going back to bookstores to steal a bit reads from books on fitness and running. Lastly, giving Ganesh all the moral and emotional support as a father who wanted his son to be the best he can be.

Deep down, he didn't know how far Ganesh could go, he didn't even know if he was giving Ganesh the correct advice and he didn't even know if his training would be injurious to Ganesh but he knew one thing - it was the best he could give Ganesh.

Giving someone your best isn't about spending valuable monies on the best coach, best food, best facilities and best what not, it's about the best you have to offer and giving it with all your heart. Ganesh eventually succeeded in wining many gold medals and a scholarship to pursue his higher education. All the time his father spent at the bookstores stealing reads to fill in the gap as a coach, pushing him on as a father, motivating Ganesh to be hungry for victory as a training mate, all that put together was the what giving his best to his son meant to him.