 Richard Lam
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| I grew up poor like everyone else in my village in Thanks to Mom's teaching, I scored high enough on the admissions test to secure a seat in elementary school. But my initial joy of getting into school was soon met with frustration. I struggled with math. As soon as Mom found out, she immediately set up tutoring sessions after dinner. Because there was no electricity, I literally had to burn the midnight oil. For me, the concept of borrowing in doing subtraction was difficult to grasp. Each time I dozed off, she would go into the kitchen, dip my towel into the barrel of cold water, and rub my face with it. The cold shock kept me alert for another hour or so. Mom wouldn't let me sleep until I had mastered the math skill. She kept me up again when she learned that I was struggling with fractions. But the most important lesson I learned from those late-night sessions was persistence. “No matter how hard it is, you will succeed if you just keep working at it!” she often repeated. After mastering subtraction and fractions, math became fairly easy and soon it became my favorite subject. But the subject that I struggled with the most, even to this day, was writing. I often panicked during essay tests because I was rather slow at putting my ideas into words. The lessons in school never seemed easy. On the other hand, the moral lessons taught at home made much more sense. I learned the virtues of charity and compassion through Mom's generosity with the needy. After marriage, she moved into Dad's village with a few medical notebooks that she inherited from her dad who was a doctor. My grandfather's notebooks contained cures for certain ailments and illnesses using herbs and other natural ingredients. Before long, villagers came knocking on the door to seek medical treatment from Mom. No matter what time of day or night, she would open the notebooks to help the person in need. Almost always, the patient would leave with an herbal recipe in hand and later return with food as repayment. But Mom often refused to accept the food because as it was, everyone had very little to eat. Many times, she would turn to me after a patient had left and say, “Always do good and good will come to you.” Mom was right. Good fortune soon came our way. Thanks to the sponsorship of my Aunt Betty, my family and I came to My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Blair, gave me a huge shot of confidence by promoting me to an honors class—high fifth. From then on, my performance in school improved year after year. When I graduated from I entered During a play, my teammate and I collided as we went for a tackle. The hard collision of my chin against the back of my teammate's head resulted in a concussion, a deep cut on the chin, and two broken teeth. The teeth could not be saved but had to be extracted. Afterward, my dentist put in two bridges in my upper teeth to fill in the two new gaps. That was supposed to be the end of my teeth problems. But soon after, I mysteriously developed an open-bite and began experiencing frequent headaches which affected my study and concentration. My open-bite got so bad that when I clenched my teeth only the molars made contact. The huge opening between my top and bottom front teeth adversely affected the way I eat, talk, and smile. Chewing with only my molars made eating a challenge. I could not enjoy the food. My speech pattern changed. I never had trouble with pronunciation before but certain words were now difficult to enunciate. And I hated my smile. Later on, for some unknown reason, my bridges began cutting into my tongue whenever I talked. It was so painful that I minimized my talking as much as possible. My dentist couldn't figure out why. To make matters worse, he thought that my pains were psychological. I got so furious that I never went back to his office again. I consulted with a number of dentists, orthodontists, and oral surgeons but none of them could figure out the cause or offer a favorable cure for my problem. One orthodontist took one look at my open-bite and said, “Sorry, can’t help you. Your case is too severe.” I remember sitting in a dental chair at the Northwestern University Dental Clinic with my mouth wide open as a group of dental students stared at my teeth trying to find the cause of my open-bite. I went through every department at that dental clinic. Only the oral surgeons offered a solution. But when they told me that my upper jaw had to be cut so that it could be pulled down to close my open-bite, I was scared to death! And the fact that this major surgery did not guarantee success made me give up any hopes of fixing my teeth altogether. My self-confidence was shattered. Life became a daily struggle. The only time I was pain-free was in my sleep. I would dream of solutions to solving my teeth problem. At times, I felt sorry for myself. I questioned what I did to deserve this. In my darkest days, I would look up into the sky and beg “Why me?!” But there was no answer. Dad tried to lift up my spirits by encouraging me to be happy and not be so depressed. Mom urged me to persevere. She inspired me with stories of her own struggles as a young woman being persecuted during the Cultural Revolution in So I did the best that I could under the circumstances. I graduated IIT with my Bachelor of Science degree in EE and went to work for Motorola, Inc. in My view on life changed almost overnight after watching the tragic events unfold on September 11, 2001. The events on that unforgettable day taught me that life is too short and that anything can happen to us. I decided that it was time to live life to the fullest and control my own Destiny. It was then that my inner voice repeated over and over, “I’m tired of waiting for Destiny. Destiny will just have to wait for me.” I felt it was time to fix my teeth. I could no longer wait for a miracle to happen! After so many years, I figured there ought to be a new procedure out there that can fix my open-bite. So I asked a coworker for a referral for a good dentist and that led me to Dr. J. Novak. After examining my teeth, he told me that he knows an orthodontist who may be able to help me. “I don’t want to get your hopes up but he has treated cases similar to yours with a good deal of success,” he said. That was music to my ears! The following week, on October 3, 2001, I went to see Dr. Robert Christopher. One of his assistants took several x-rays then took me into a room where I waited anxiously for my diagnosis. “Aren’t you glad you have waited two years?” Dr. Christopher asked as he walked into the room. His sarcasm caught me by surprise. I didn’t know what to say. “If you came to me two years ago, I would have sent you next door to the oral surgeon. But I've got a new procedure that can fix your problem in six months,” he explained. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I thought I was in one of my dreams! But sure enough, he convinced me by showing photos of his former patients before and after the treatment using the revolutionary new procedure. It was the happiest moment of my life. I had waited almost ten years for this. I couldn’t wait to get home to tell Mom and Dad. The procedure that Dr. Christopher described resembled in some ways how I dreamt it. It was a non-surgical procedure using a combination of metal braces, thin wires bent into small loops, and rubber bands. My self-confidence gradually returned over the course of my treatment with Dr. Christopher. Life was good again. Then, I got laid off from Motorola after seven and half years of employment in 2003. So I decided to go back to school to become a math teacher. After studying two years full-time, I graduated from I taught several years at
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