After a knock, the nurse gently pushed
the door and peeped into the admission room, “Can I come in?” she asked,
smiling caringly. She didn’t wait for any answers as she made her way
to the bed where Robert Chigozie Okwara laid.
“How are you today young man?” she asked,
walking towards the front of his bed. She stopped, rested her hand on
the patient’s chest. “I have come to get you for your exercise
today,” she announced, turning in the direction of a wheel chair placed
by the door. She pulled the wheel chair closer to the bed, bridged it
with a sliding wood to enable Okwara to transit, perhaps, painlessly,
from his bed to the wheel chair, unassisted. Continue..
“CJ, you may rise, try and sit on the
wheel chair so that we may go for your exercise. Take your time.” The
young man nodded as visitors and his dad watched him in the process.
Slowly, he sat up, took a deep breath, surveyed the bed with his
looks, tried to find a suitable position for his next shift towards the
wheel chair. His father, Chigozie, stood by the edge of the bed,
watching with frustration. Regular daily easy and simple chores had
become painful challenges for his son. CJ, as he is fondly called,
picked his right leg and gently placed it on the floor, adjusted his
body in the direction of the wheel chair. He moaned, inhaled the
travelling breeze in the room. “The pain is running through my veins,”
he said as he began to massage his thighs. His dad tried to assist him
but the nurse refused. “He has to learn how to live independently,” she
affectionately explained.
He attempted a third push towards the
wheel chair, placing his butt on the flat wood that slides him into the
chair. The nurse unlocked the wheel breaks and pushed him towards the
hallways for his exercise. They disappeared into the hospital’s gym.
This was not the life Okwara dreamt of
when he transferred from Livingston College in South Carolina to Alabama
State University, recruited as a line backer for the college football
team, in 2012.
Early this fall, as summer days were
ending, his dreams of playing in the National Football League, America’s
elite professional sports , shattered during a day time random robbery
in his apartment complex.
The 20-year-old athlete remembered how
the robbery happened. “It was very spontaneous. Three men deceived my
roommate and I as we walked out of our apartment that afternoon, they
said they had ipod gadgets to sell to us in our apartment complex. The
guys asked us to meet at a designated area to check the ipods. As soon
as we arrived, they pulled guns at us, took my bag. I was scared. I
reacted by punching one of the robbers in his face. He was knocked
unconscious: his gun fell from his hands. One of the robbers panicked
and shot at me as I was about to run. Everything went down so fast. I
was shot in my waist. I lay in a pool of blood, bullet lodged in my
spine; I was in serious pain from the gunshot. Other residents in the
complex called the police and requested an ambulance. Thirty minutes
later, the ambulance arrived and I was rushed to the Baptist hospital in
Montgomery Alabama. I couldn’t move and breathing was very hard. I just
wanted the hospital to put me to sleep. I was in a coma for six days.”
Through the university, the hospital
contacted CJ’s dad, Chigozie Okwara, in far away Raleigh North Carolina.
The hospital briefed him on the state of his son. That evening, he
drove hundreds of miles to be by his son’s side.
“ Jebose, I arrived inside the intensive
care unit of the Montgomery Baptist Hospital where he was being treated.
He was connected to tubes and other stuffs. I held his hands and asked
him to squeeze my fingers if he recognised my voice and my face. He did.
I knew then that we shall win this new challenge that God blessed my
family. I told him not to worry about anything. He is alive and we would
go this journey together. He underwent surgery on his spinal cord and a
plate was inserted to assist the shatter. The doctor said that though,
he is paralysed from waist down, he is still a young man and we could
see a turn around with his body in the future. He could walk. “I am
struggling to make things better, but each time I try, things get worse.
I don’t blame him for this. It’s not his fault. He never asked for
this. He was a very good football player. He has a lot of friends in NFL
now that have called to support and pray for him. My son has done
everything I asked of him growing up, a great kid and fine athlete. When
I drove taxicab back in the days, I was cab number 34. My son chose the
number 34 as his high school football jersey and hoped to wear that
number in NFL, to honour my hard work and struggles as a single dad. But
here I am with him; our lives are altered by that senseless gunshot
that paralysed him. I am not going to leave him behind. He needs me now
more than ever. I am his feet and together, we will learn to live with
his circumstance. We will walk again, someday, soonest.”
Chigozie has had his shares of the
American nightmares. He moved to the United States with his wife in
1991. Few years after settling into life, the couple had CJ. Chigozie
engaged in small business enterprise with his wife to care for their
young family. He opened an African restaurant, managed by his wife while
he supported the income from the restaurant with taxicab operations. In
1996, his wife had immigration problems and was subsequently deported
to Nigeria. Chigozie became a single parent by circumstance. He
struggled to raise his two boys, CJ and his younger brother.
CJ experienced the hard and difficult life in the United States with his dad and brother.
‘Sir, those experiences motivated me to
work hard in school and hopefully be a great football player and
business man so that I might be that golden ticket for my family,
especially my dad.”
Years later, Chigozie would run into immigration problems.
In 2007, he was arrested and placed on
deportation. He spent three years in the Immigration and Custom
Enforcement (ICE) detention centre. “Jebose, my children were homeless
when I was thrown into the immigration jail, awaiting deportation. I
thought I had lost them. But through the help of friends, the issues
were resolved and I was released as a documented alien. I returned to
Raleigh, gathered my children and we began to rebuild our lives and
family again. We were near the completion of rebuilding this family when
this tragedy happened again. God knows why us.”
Young CJ stared at the ceiling in the
room, tears began to drop from the corners of his red eyes. He tried to
hide the expressions of his feelings before his father. He didn’t want
him to see the tears, but the streams ran down his eyes, spreading and
covering his face.
“Mr. Jebose, I see this situation as a
lesson. I have a second chance at life. I received so much support from
friends and within the Football League. One of my friends, Austin, told
me how I inspired him: how he looked up to me and how he always wanted
to be like me. I didn’t know at all that the simple things I did for him
as a friend would impact him so much, so when this happened, he was
always here, supporting me with bible verses and encouraging me to stay
strong. I had to be strong mentally and physically to be able to begin
this new chapter of my life’s story.
“I feel I have disappointed my dad. My
dad always told me to avoid bad situations; I got caught up in this
strange armed robbery attack: my dreams of going to the National
Football League as a pro draft shattered. My family looked up to me to
better our lives. My father had gone through pains for us and especially
for me. I worked very hard as an athlete from my high school to college
so I would be able to fulfill my dreams of NFL and help my family. He
spent three years in immigration detention facing deportation, but we
pulled that through, now this armed robbery against me disabled my hopes
and dreams. I feel I have disappointed my family. I can’t be drafted by
NFL as a paralysed athlete. But I have to be positive.
“I dreamt of the big game days in NFL. I
dreamt of super bowl. I never got the opportunity to show my talent. I
came down to Alabama on scholarship to play football and also get
education, but my big dream got shattered. Next year would have been my
year for an opportunity to shine in the NFL and help my family live
comfortably. I will finish my major in business and go from there. Being
paralysed is not the end of the world.”
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