Jan Gunash

This one feels raw, but it’s the best way I know to connect.

We often celebrate resilience, motivation and grit – the idea of running through brick walls to get where you want. My experience with this feeling is a little different, and it comes from experiences likely shared by many people.

I’m a first-generation Canadian. My parents left small villages in Sri Lanka during the 1980s. My father arrived in Canada first, learning English and finding work, before bringing my mother and sister over. I was born nearly a decade later.

I never quite knew how to answer questions like “What makes you tick?” or “How do you bounce back so quickly?” Those answers live in my father’s story. He supported our family on a hospital receptionist’s salary, shifted into accounting, and eventually became an independent accountant, all while delivering newspapers by night. I still remember rolling stacks of papers into bags before joining him on some of those early morning routes.

He refused to let me take the easy path. While my classmates used calculators, I had to write out all of my work, often spilling into recess and lunch, until I caught up. Messy handwriting meant extra exercises and less time to play at school; a single B on my report card meant revisiting every mistake and resubmitting them. By age twelve, I’d read books like Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, and How to Win Friends and Influence People.

I never knew how my dad grew up. He never talked about it. I actually found most of his story when he wrote a book after he retired, less than a decade ago. He wrote about the huts he grew up in, the hurricanes, “borrowing” from the temple to survive, selling homemade food for his mother.  He risked everything so we would struggle less and build the resilience to give more to our children.

So when people ask me about resilience, I think of my dad. It’s doing what’s required with no thought of reward, sometimes simply to bridge a gap. You just get it done and get ready for tomorrow.

My life today is already infinitely easier than his was, and that’s more than enough to get me out of bed each morning.

I watched my dad spend his life planting seeds, and I’ve grown up reaping all of the flowers.