The day that changed my destiny
was an ordinary day, like all others.
One of those cold winter nights when all you want to do,
is to make a cup of tea, pick up a good novel, sit on the couch,
next to the fireplace and enjoy life.
But I had to go to work.
More importantly, in the afternoon,
I had to take my 2-year-old to her routine checkup.
The next day was her second birthday,
But that day was not a normal day,
and that checkup was not a routine one.
At 5 am the next morning,
I was standing in behind the doors of the hospital operating room.
From the small window,
I was watching the heated debate amongst the physicians
over what they should do.
My little girl, was laying on the bed, under anesthesia.
No one had told me anything since 6 pm, the day before about what had happened.
With all my questions, all my anxiety,
I could clearly see from their faces that something is very wrong.
No one would tell me anything more than what they thought I needed to know.
It was my right to know, but they did not give me that.
I felt anger on top of all that was going on.
I had no choice but to stand there.
I had done all the yelling and screaming.
I had told them I didn't believe them.
I had told them I won't let anyone touch my little girl,
I won't let anyone operate on my two year old child,
that I'd fly this very night to another place that had better resources
so they could tell me without surgery what was wrong.
But they told me that every minute counts now.
So I had to stand there, quietly, patiently.
That was nearly impossible.
You all know that look on the face of someone about to deliver bad news.
Seeing that face, you won't wait for news,
your whole world begins to spin.
For me, that bad news was like a tsunami.
All my life, future plans, happiness, comfort,
feeling of serendipity, everything was washed away by this tsunami.
It took me a long time to realize that bad news is not bad in essence.
It takes time to discover whether the news is good or bad.
But on that day,
that news was a very bad one for me.
It paralyzed me from making a decision.
A relentless anger burned inside me as strong as a dragon.
Why? Why my little angel? Why me?
What have I done to deserve this?
For my little girl to have cancer? Cancer?
My 2 year old, on the eve of her birthday.
In life, we all face unbelievable moments,
unbelievable events when we know we have no choice but to surrender.
We immediately started treatment
because in the doctors' opinion,
one displaced cancerous cell could change everything
and treatment needed to start right away.
After a week of going back and forth to the hospital where she was,
because of the long distance and Tehran's bad traffic,
and the friendship of the medical team, who were family friends,
my daughter was transferred to the Shohada Hospital in Tajrish Sq.,
closer to my home.
I assumed all this will make things a bit easier but the first day
I entered the new hospital I realized how small I was in the grand scheme of things.
I didn't feel any less angry but in that moment,
I realized that for 30 years,
I had walked by the tall and cold walls
of that place an never once thought about what went on inside.
All desperate people sitting in there, all the people waiting for something.
I'd passed by these walls on my way to university or elsewhere,
not thinking of the mass of people spending impossible moments
on the other side.
How come I had never stepped foot into this place?
What could I do now? Nothing! I was there for my own child.
I was desperate with my own problem.
I couldn't do anything.
So, we continued the treatment.
The cold winter days passed. Norouz celebration arrived.
Norouz which bore so much meaning for everyone else,
was meaningless to me.
In fact, I felt upset that everyone thinks all is well and joyous,
celebrating the arrival of spring, with all colorful customs of the New Year.
Time had stopped for me.
Nothing else, not my family,
not my other child existed for me.
The holidays passed.
The day after I had to go back to the hospital,
to review the plans for second rounds of chemo,
and there...
I saw Maryam, one of the mothers who I'd always noticed.
She is a middle aged woman,
with a face showing signs of starvation,
with shabby clothes, but... dignified.
She had a 13 year old boy that was always barefoot on her shoulder.
We had come and gone before Norouz.
This time too I saw her going in, carrying a bundle of herbs,
a bouquet of flowers and her son.
I quickly nodded and passed by her. That's it.
I wasn't even polite enough
to wish her happy New year.
I passed her as I did not want to spend even one extra minute in that place.
As I walked a few steps past, she called to me.
I thought, oh gosh,
I bet she wants to wish me happy New year...
Happy New year to yourself.
I don't think it's happy at all.
Or, she's trying to get ahead of me. So I ignored her and kept wlaking.
She called again.
I thought, ok, now I'll turn around and tell her,
"You know what dear, I'm very busy today.
I have to go, sorry, I can't stop and chat."
So... I turned around.
I turned and saw face glowing like the moon,
two eyes full of sunshine.
(Applause)
A bouquet of wildflowers, lilies, tulips,
narcissus, all shades of purple and red, and green in front of me.
Then she said: "I picked these from Turkmen Sahra,
I prayed that I'd see you,
I wanted to tell you, God is great.
Why are you so restless?
Be calm, this too will pass it will all pass.
I apologize for getting emotional, though it's been some twenty years now.
It is because in that moment all my pulses stopped, everything stopped.
Even my heart, I think even my heart, stopped beating for a few seconds.
I thought what am I to do now?
Did I really ignore this woman?
Was I really going talk to her in that way?
What was I thinking? Who am I?
Who am I? Who is this? Who am I?
And in those moments...
Seeing my struggle, she placed the flowers on my daughter's lap in the stroller,
on her skirt, and went away.
I remained there, with a light that suddenly lit up inside me.
And I saw myself from Maryam's eyes.
I saw an angry, entitled woman who always has a reason to be dissatisfied,
who thinks that she's different,
who is now squatting in the corner of her cold, dark, lonely cave.
Why? Because I had pushed away my friends.
Because I hated being the subject of pity.
I had stopped my family because they had all kinds of suggestions,
each one saying something different: do this, do that.
I had told everyone I didn't want them,
that I want to focus all my energy on this child,
receiving multiple CCs of poison every day,
whose veins are burning, who is screaming, "I'm burning, I'm burning!"
None of you know what you're talking about, I don't want your advice.
I had pushed away her doctors.
They did their job of course,
but they knew I didn't believe in them.
I looked and saw myself in the corner of the cave, sitting alone,
building thicker walls each day.
But I could hear the cracks in the ice too.
I could hear them breaking down.
A ray of light shining through the cracks
was showing me, sitting in the corner, squatting with my head on my knees.
I thought... I have no choice, but to go forward,
to pick myself off the ground and say,
"Get up Saideh, get up!
Come to your senses! Watch Maryam!
She has a thousandth of your resources,
she gives what little is in her power.
She has picked these flowers for you, from the other side of the world.
Who are you? Be the kind of person that is worthy of this love,
Learn something!"
In those moments of awareness,
I believe I subconsciously made a promise to myself
that from that day forth, I would seek to learn
Maryam and the Maryams of the world, and dedicate my life to serving them.
I wasn't fully aware of the promise.
It was just a fire that Maryam had lit inside me.
This woman had 4 children.
She worked in the rice paddies in the north of Iran.
And...
her husband had died in the war.
And since this was the period right after the war in Iran,
due to resource scarcity, the priority of the healthcare system
was saving soldiers and their families,
but not a child with cancer.
Because the understanding back then,
we're talking some 20 years ago, was: a child with cancer will eventually die.
In those days, the only people fighting for them were their mothers.
A mother, if her child is a month old, and is lost in the depth of the ocean,
she will dive in to save her,
because she'd still have hope that she can save her child.
So, it was the mothers who were fighting.
Maryam was one of those mothers.
She was carrying her 13 year old child on her shoulders,
to Tehran to get treated.
I had made a promise to myself.
The first was to learn from Maryam.
Maryam's secret is something all of us in this place need.
Live without expectation, love without expectation.
Give without expectation.
Her only expectation was of herself.
Everything she wanted, she wanted it of herself.
This trait was so powerful in this woman that she filled her surrounding
with her energy and made an impact, as she had changed my world.
The second part of my promise was to live a life of service to them.
As I took the first steps,
naturally there was the perception,
"Pfff...a child with cancer... in this country...
such expensive medicine."
This, that, and the other thing, "Why would anyone bother?"
The officials would dismiss me saying,
"Go home lady, children with cancer are a lost cause."
But I was compelled, not through my own willpower,
but emboldened by the fire that Maryam has lit inside me.
There was no room for second thoughts.
So I kept going, my going was first steps.
And then, it was help pouring in from all sides.
You, sitting in this audience,
I am certain
that you are the same helpers,
at least 80-90% of you are,
people who have helped us on this path.
What was the result?
The result is that today, in homeland,
no child with cancer will die of poverty.
(Applause)
If you allow me to continue, you will like hearing the rest even more.
Because you are applauding yourself,
and the people who created a miracle, by trusting each other and joining force.
What happened is that no father had to stand ashamed anymore
at the pharmacy counter because he has no money for the medicine.
No mother had to crawl in the dark cave because she didn't know what has happened
and couldn't accept what those around her told her.
Because, now, there is an organization of this scale supporting them.
They have access to many volunteer, professional psychologists,
who teach them how to cope with these problems.
Their other children, the sisters and brothers,
don't have to miss school anymore
because their parents can continue their normal lives,
while solving this problem.
You have made all of this possible.
This is what I wanted to share with you.
In going through this journey I have discovered an absolute truth:
Within every human being, without exception,
there is a seed of a miracle.
Some due to circumstances...
Some spend their life in complete ignorance like I was.
In that world that they're in, they have no time,
no opportunity to pay attention to this seed.
We can't blame them.
Life happened for me this way, so I followed this path.
My genes, my upbringing, my family, all of it.
I didn't even know the seed existed, so I had no way to look for it.
Until life slapped me awake.
But some people are seeking it, and seeking...
I, instead of...
instead of regret, sadness, and self-pity,
which is a habit incrusted in us, and we all have to feel sorry for it.
From morning to night and from night to morning
we blame everyone for everything that has happened to us except ourselves.
Instead of why, maybe the better question is:
How shall we get out of this situation?
What are the ways out of this problem?
The hardest steps are the first steps.
If we take them, the universe will push us forward.
The universe is searching for those who want to create change.
You can see this in your life.
This has nothing to do with university or wealth.
This has everything to do with a seeking mind.
A mind that does not surrender to obstacles,
a mind that searches for a solution.
Once that has happened, there is no stopping it.
You will see that you will also become one of miracle workers of the world.
The only question that we must ask today is:
What will be my miracle?
Thank you.
(Applause)