He had always been a sickly child.

When the other kids played to their heart's content, through heavy rain and late into the night, he would inevitably break a knee or bruise an elbow and thereby find a reason to come home. I would have to bandage the wound and console the child, already bawling and clinging to me desperately as if hiding from the world. 

I loved fulfilling my motherly duties, but his withdrawal from the outdoors unsettled me. I knew all children couldn't possibly be alike, but I strongly believed that he needed rain and shine as much as the indoors, and the million little things that a child inculcates from playing as a team. 

I tried probing into the matter, to see if someone had hurt him, discouraged him, or if he was interested in something less popular. I tried enrolling him in the school team, meeting his friends, getting his dad and teachers to intervene, before I finally gave up. Maybe he just wasn't made for the outdoors, and I didn't want to force him into anything he didn't want to be part of. 

The years rolled by. He was an average student, and never got into any trouble. Maybe the ideal child to some parents, but something was gnawing away at the back of my head. I would look around and see kids full of life, practically bouncing off the tarmac, and he so starkly the opposite.I even started doubting my parenting skills.

Still, I always believed things would change once he grew up.

But he stayed the same.