An excerpt from the book Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella. This was in 1996 when Satya and his wife Anu were expecting their first child.
“It was the year 1996, my career as an engineer was taking off, while Anu was building her career as an architect. We were far from our families in India, but settling into our new life together in the Seattle area. Even more exciting, however, was that Anu was pregnant with our first child.
In the apartment we were renting next to the Microsoft campus, we spent months busily preparing for his arrival – decorating a nursery, putting plans in place for Anu to return to her career, envisioning how our weekends and holidays would change. We were ready to add a new joy to our life.
One night, during the thirty-sixth week of her pregnancy, Anu noticed that the baby was not moving as much as she was accustomed to.
So we went to the emergency room of a local hospital in Bellevue. We thought it would be just a routine checkup, little more than new parent anxiety.
In fact, I distinctly remember feeling annoyed by the wait times we experienced in the emergency room. But upon examination, the doctors were alarmed enough to order an emergency cesarean section.
Zain was born on August 13, 1996, all of three pounds. He did not cry.
Zain was transported from the hospital in Bellevue across Lake Washington to Seattle Children’s Hospital with its state-of-the-art Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
Anu began her recovery from the difficult birth. I spent the night with her in the hospital and immediately went to see Zain the next morning.
Little did I know then how profoundly our lives would change. Over the course of the next couple of years we learned more about the damage caused by in-utero asphyxiation, and how Zain would require a wheelchair and be reliant on us because of severe cerebral palsy.
I was devastated. But mostly I was sad for how things turned out for me and Anu.
To say that period of time was difficult is an understatement. One of the things I remember most clearly, however, is how Anu’s reaction to Zain’s birth was immediately so different from mine.
For Anu, it was never about what this meant for her – it was always about what it meant for Zain, and how we could best care for him. Rather than asking – why us? She instinctively felt his pain before her own.
Over time, Anu helped me understand that nothing had happened to me or to her, but something had happened to Zain.”
In life, we tend to be more self-focused than seeing what others around us go through.
Many of us might not go through deep pain in our lives, or even have the ability to come out of a painful episode with a life changing learning.
Empathy is understanding and ability to express others pain, first.
The way we see pain is an essential part of our inner being. Seeing others pain first leads to a fuller, more meaningful and more accomplished life.