if i were pregnant

I heard the most amazing speech ever given in my entire life of witnessing speeches.

We had a normal MIM Toastmasters meeting yesterday morning. However, it was anything but normal. In every toastmasters meeting, there is a session called the Table Topics session. For this meeting, I was the Table Topics master and so my role was to prepare topics for volunteers to talk about for two minutes. It's basically to help people practice thinking and speaking on their feet.

When TT session came, I said that "there are times in our lives we wish to be someone else... and so my theme for the topics was 'If I were...' " The people who came up front had to randomly choose a character from a card. My variety were:

• Wizard
• Radio
• Colonel Sanders
• Walt Disney
• Pregnant
• Reporter
• Bill Gates
• Tooth Fairy
• Vampire

I was snickering on who would be the one lucky enough to get "pregnant".

During our meeting, there were guests from Confucion school, about 12 of them (teachers and students included). So when the time came for me to ask for a volunteer, the 5th speaker, in the form of the only boy from Confucion School, shot his hand right up. He looked very quiet and reserved, did not show any eye contact neither did he really smile. When the probably-15-year-old chose a card, yes you guessed it, he got the topic "If I were pregnant". The audience erupted in laughter! And everyone eagerly leaned forward to hear what exactly this boy would come up with.

I think at first he was a bit dumbfounded as well because he slowly said "If I were pregnant..." He had a far away look and stared at the floor most of the time. But suddenly he kept on going without any stutters or stammering.

If I were pregnant.... I would look after my child (pause).... like how my mother looked after me. My parents got divorced when I was very young. My father abused my mother and hurt her a lot. We had to go to court and my father was fighting rights to take us as his children. He said that our mother abuses us. My mother also fought for us and in the end, she won. So if I were pregnant, I would protect my child. Because no matter what happens, you know that there will always be someone who shares your blood which is your mother.

There was a pin drop silence throughout the whole 2 minutes. Everyone was holding their breath. I swear I could feel tears welling. After he ended his speech, the audience erupted in a thunderous applause! People were shaking their heads in disbelief and smiling at the same time. I was momentarily speechless and all I could say after his speech was "That was a WOW speech". The applause carried on for the second time and everyone were astounded by that moving speech.

That was the best speech I have ever heard.

And not surprisingly, his was voted as Best Table Topics Speech.

NB: what I wrote wasn't two minutes but the basic gist of it. I was too caught up in emotions to fully remember his whole speech.