His Story
I want to preface this passage by saying that this isn’t a sob story. I am not looking for any pity purchases and I would never try to exploit this story to sell coffee. I just want to tell you the story behind the story. I want to create a community, and most importantly, I want to help make a difference.
My name is Amrit Reehal. I am turning thirty this year but I don’t think I ever really matured past eighteen. On the first day of high school, me and my cousin carpooled. We were very late and we could hear the assembly already in progress. With a knot of hair on my head and a knot in my stomach, I walked into the assembly and looked for a seat at the back. The principal saw me and said “there is a seat up here at the front”. Hundreds of sets of eyes turned back to look at me as I walked across the now whispered filled assembly.
Despite my first impression, I made friends in high school that I would consider an extension of my family. A group of misfits that were always getting up to no good, with enough memories to have entire conversations talking about the good old days. One of those misfits had muscular dystrophy.
In all honesty, growing up, we didn’t really know that he had muscular dystrophy because he never let it stop him from doing anything. He would still keep up with us, joke with us, and would be at the front of the group ready to argue with anyone that had something to say. No matter what happened, he always had a smile on his face. All we really knew was that he was one of us.
Unfortunately, we lost him in 2018 to Muscular Dystrophy. I still remember the group going to his house to say goodbye to him for the last time. With tears streaming down our faces, we shared all the memories we had with him. He just smiled back at us.
In the fifteen years we were friends, I learned a lot from him. He taught me to be determined and never let anything hold you back from what you want to achieve. He taught me to not take life for granted and to continue to make memories. And he taught me to not take myself too seriously and to embrace the immaturity.
The group got his number, 3000, tattooed on themselves. I put the tattoo on my wrist so everyday I would be reminded of everything he taught me. He was the reason I was on board to get Singh Beans off the ground and the motivation to work on Singh Beans even after working my day job. He is the reason we picked MD Canada as our charity. This is his story.
