From animals to human infants, the innate will to fight resides in us all. It’s in the sweet faced little boy whose eyes gleam with innocence. It’s what allows the torn and used drug addict to break free from his enemy and regain control of his life. It’s that overpowering force that claws at life frantically even during the last breaths of suicide. Sometimes even at times when we don’t fully understand why we are fighting but we just simply know we have to fight. I believe that there is a fight in every individual. It’s the fight in us that allows us go through life, even after its knocked us down like a stray ship in the midst the ocean storm.
One day, when I was fourteen years old, my mother sat down with me to have a serious talk. Her eyes were glazed with thought and waves of wrinkles surfaced on her face. I knew from her body language, and facial expression, that this was a serious talk. In response, my body became still and erect, preparing for whatever subject we were about to discuss. She proceeded to tell me that this was something she had always wanted me to know and felt that the time was right. My breath held but my heart beat uncontrollably as I waited for a cloud of doom to descend. However, the conversation swerved into a lane I had not expected. My mother began to tell me that when she had me, she and my dad were very young and unmarried. Her mother, embarrassed and ashamed, made her get an abortion. Around this time in Liberia, many people were practicing abortion. Between a rock and a hard place, she consented and took strong abortion pills that very often succeeded in its purpose. However, miraculously, the pills failed to destroy the delicate little fetus that grew within her petite body. I continued to grow from a minute cell to develop into a healthy child with no birth complications. She then added that before my birth, she had a dream where she was on a boat. A man appeared, dressed in a crisp white suit and told her that she could not kill the baby and if she were to try she would die. My mother has always had dreams that foretold the future so she took heed to the warning. Shocked, my mind roamed. Wow, was all I could muffle out. I realized from this unusual story, that there was a fight in every single individual. Even as a mere cluster of cells of a person, I fought for life. I came to see that fighting is not just about physical blows but the will that lives in all of us to carry on despite the adversity. It’s an instinct to preserve life even when it seems it has been destroyed and it resides in everyone. If as an undeveloped fetus, I could have fight in me, then everyone else must possess the same as well.