Real Love

While having my break in the guardhouse rest room during Sunday guard duty, I struck up a conversation with the duty driver, a chubby chap I'd seen around before but never really got to know very well. As we talked I ended up asking him about whether he planned to clock up enough mileage to convert his military driving license to a civilian one, and he said yes he would, because it is very expensive to take lessons and take the driving test outside. He began to talk about how it'd help him find a job, and he talked about the jobs he had before he joined the army. Then I asked him about whether he had any siblings and he said yes, he has two sisters, both younger than him, and he'd worked to put them through school, while the older of the two was now working to help pay for the youngest's education, since he's in the army. His parents aren't together, so the heaviest burden falls on him, as the eldest child. He mused for a while, and half resignedly, half jokingly said he'd probably never get married, because it's too costly and difficult to save up for married life on top of his other duties. He then said, well that's the lot of the oldest child, isn't it? Give up what you want for the younger siblings.

Then it struck me how much he had given up for them, and what a great deal it is to leave school and start working from a young age knowing full well that it's probably unlikely that you'd ever go back to school again, so many doors being closed to you as a result. It's a great deal to have to interrupt your work to enlist in the army and receive lower pay and on top of that spend even less time with family who need you, a much greater deal than the limpid grouses of those of us who've university places or jobs waiting for us outside when we finally finish our term of national service. Our own problems often seem much smaller when compared to those of others. I wonder, too, how much I'd be willing to give up for my own sister, even as I tell her that I love her. Love isn't just a warm fuzzy feeling.