What broke and made you?

“I think my injury broadly shaped who I am today,” my teenage Valentin son told me. We were exchanging text messages about our life as a family and how we are all different. I have four kids. Valentin is my second son. He’s in Florida now.

I know what he means. It’s been a complicated journey.

Three ago, we didn’t know how to handle Val — his stubborn character and his extreme addiction to gaming on his phone. We could take it away, but it was never a sustainable solution. He played tennis but had a nagging shoulder pain that wouldn’t go away. During the pandemic, the combination of shutdowns, homeschooling, and his injury amplified the problems we were having with our son. At times, we also doubted he was injured — at times, it was easy to imagine Val was lying and being lazy.

The injury turned out more severe than we thought. In the summer of last year, Valentin had surgery.

From there onwards, it was the most dramatic transformation I’d ever observed in a person of any age. Valentin matured and became uncompromisingly consistent with his strength training and sports pursuits; he’s flawless academically. And his maturity extends much beyond the activities that are expected of him. He actively keeps in touch with all relatives, no matter the distance and the recency of our family’s interactions with them and the people he…