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As I write this sentence, Toronto has just made the shortlist for Amazon's second US headquarters.
I grew up in Malvern, a lower-income suburb of Toronto. Torontonians don't really visit Malvern, and you can't blame them.
Convenient store owners have died on more than one occasion. Bus drivers have caught stray bullets to their face. Even kids have caught strays during bbq's in the summer.
This is where I grew up. This is where we grew up.
There were four of us: me, mom, dad, and sis. My parents were teachers from Guyana, a third-world country on the top of South America. I was a good boy. I did everything they told me to.
My parents loved to read and they shared the wealth. Dad fed me children’s versions of his favorite books, from biographies of people like Edison and Lincoln to the classics like Odyssey. I remember identifying a lot with Odysseus; he was like a heroic nerd. My mom, on the other hand, read books that I’d need life’s scrapes and bruises to understand like The Teachings of Don Juan and the Tao Te Ching.
Their hard work paid off. By 22, I landed a full-time gig at an IT consulting firm. Soon, I was cultivating relationships with some of the largest companies in the world, including Toyota, Sony, and Johnson & Johnson. I was making money, finishing my business degree at U of T part-time, and adding stamps to my passport.
There were two areas of my life that weren’t exactly clicking: my health and my family life. My meal prep was a Big Mac meal with a Coke, McChicken on the side, and a double cheeseburger for the ride home. I virtually ignored my family. I saw them as I went from obligation to obligation, and why not? I was doing everything they wanted me to.
One day, I was interviewing a candidate at a Starbucks when my mom called. She was at the hospital. My dad lost consciousness while running errands. He fell and hit his head. Hard.
She handed the phone to the doctor. He said that half of dad’s heart was dead. He had a heart attack a few days ago and didn’t realize it. They were rushing him downtown. I needed to do the same.
I didn’t rush downtown.
I ended the interview, drove across the street to the mall, and got a book. I figured that if I was going to be at the hospital for awhile, I should get a book. Dad would be fine, anyway.
When I arrived, there were tubes everywhere. I jokingly asked him if he’d eaten a bad piece of fish. That’s the last thing I remember saying to him.
They took him into operate. They said it could take hours. I went downstairs. I wanted to get some fresh air. It was summer, and I took at seat by the garden. I promised myself I’d spend more time with him if he pulled through. I imagined all of the things that we’d do together when he got out.
When the surgeons came out of the operating room a few hours later, they told us they’d done everything they could. I walked into his room, cried for all of 4 seconds, and composed myself.
The nurse handed me the waiver. I signed it. They turned off the machines. I dropped my mom and sister home and went back to the office. Sure it was 3AM, but I needed to make a list of everything that needed to be done while I was away.
I didn’t cry at his funeral. At the funeral, I poured myself into helping others mourn. My mom told me that everyone was impressed with the way I handled myself. In truth, I didn’t want anything to do with my pain.
I went right back to work. I wouldn’t have a relationship with my mom or sister for the next ten years. If my eating habits were terrible before he died, they became even worse afterward. I began calling in sick one Monday after another. As the years wore on, my successes began to slow. Eventually, they stalled completely.
One day, I found myself depressed, riddled with anxiety, and 220lbs. at Just 31 years old, my body fat percentage was over 34%. I virtually ignored vegetables. There were times when I wouldn’t leave my apartment for months on end. When I did manage try drag myself out of bed, I found myself hyperventilating everywhere I went. In fact, things got so bad that I was asked by a cardiologist to walk around with a HEART MONITOR.
My doctors didn’t mince words: I was staring death in the face. I had to do something.