I was nine years old when my father died. I remember the house going quiet, and I remember the moment I understood that things had changed for good. My mother had my sister and me to look after, and suddenly I was the only man in the house. Nobody told me I had to grow up. I just knew.
So I went to work. I learned to be an electrician, and I was proud of it. Every wage I brought home went straight to my mother, and seeing her a little less worried was the only reward I needed. I didn't have much of a childhood after that, but I never felt sorry for myself. We had to get by, and we did.
Later I took a job as a projectionist at the cinema. I spent my evenings in that little room at the back, listening to the hum of the projector while the audience laughed and gasped below me. It paid the bills, but my mind was always somewhere else. In my spare hours I was planning something of my own: a company.
I didn't build it alone. Mina, my wife, was beside me from the very first day. People tell you that starting a business is a dream, but nobody tells you how much courage it takes. To get it off the ground, I went to the bank and took out a large loan. I still remember signing those papers and feeling the weight of it on my shoulders. It took us years to pay it back. There were nights we sat at the kitchen table doing the sums again and again, wondering if we'd make it.
But we did. One day the last payment went through, and every debt was settled. I can't describe the relief, and the pride, of that moment.
What makes me proudest, though, isn't the money. It's the people. Over the years our company gave jobs to many families in our community, men and women who could bring a wage home the way I once did for my mother. When I think back to that nine-year-old boy in a quiet house, I like to think he would be proud of what we built.