Heart Skipped a Beat

About two weeks back I was sitting in my office drafting letters which needed to be sent out to clients. I was furiously typing and trying to hear myself think above the sound of the rain belting down outside my window, when my cell phone vibrated. Now when im at the office and im hectic I most often than not switch my phone off and hardly ever answer calls from numbers I dont recognize. Now im not anti-social but clients can be a pain in the butt.

Anyways I picked up my phoned looked at the number which i did not recognize and as I was about to ignore the call something told me “JUST ANSWER THE DAM THING”. So I answered in a rather annoyed tone and to my surprised I heard my brothers voice as I had never heard it before. He was rushed and anxious, he was hasty and afraid. The next thing I knew was that I was on the road on my way to lenasia to catch the N1 to Bloemfontein as my brother had met up in an accident. All I remember him saying was “bad accident”, “car written off”, “im ok but please hurry”.

At that moment nothing mattered to me, not the needs of my clients, not the approval of my boss, nor his permission to attend to my brother. My brain in the midst of a crisis had a moment of sheer clarity when all that mattered was getting to my brother and making sure that he was alright. As I raced down the N1 to find him, not knowing exactly where he was I could not help but think of the most horrifying images that would greet me, as if my mind was preparing me for the worse. 82 kilometers outside Johannesburg I saw in the distance the flicker of ambulance lights, I had found him. When I got to the scene the first thing I saw was the car on its side in a ditch mangled. I heard my brothers voice and saw him and everything was good again. He has somehow managed to escape the wreck with only minor cuts and bruises.

I have always maintained that my priorities in life are my Family and my Religion, work and worldly success no matter now important they may seem come in very far behind. The smile my brother gave my when I saw him was worth more than any paycheck I could ever receive. His voice talking to me as we were in the ambulance gave me an absolutely indescribable feeling. To think that in a matter of seconds all of that could have been gone, (ofcourse the Almighty is the best of planners I know).

We in today’s world have a tendency to drown ourselves in our work and neglect our families as modern society has now shifted the emphasis on the individual rather than the collective. I for one will not be an individual on an island, my family is what has shaped and molded the person I am today.

I have decided to never ever let work get in the way of time with my family or having a life. Building a career is important and you need to work hard and sacrifice, but I draw the line at family.