I’ve had many dreams since childhood.

When I went to primary school, I aspired to top the list on the academic results notice board. During my middle school days, I coveted the most sought-after admission to Pyongyang Middle School No. 1.

All these aspirations came true thanks to the beneficial socialist education system.

However, there remained one thing I had yet to realize. It was wishful thinking or trauma for me.

When I was three years old, my father, Kwon Jin Su, was crippled in an accident and left wheelchair-bound.

Like other children, I desired to walk around with my father and take a full run mounted on his shoulder.

There are such lines in “I Am a Son of a Worker,” one of the famous poems at home: “I prayed in my mind. Classmates would stop boasting of their fathers. The teacher would not ask me about my father’s job.”

Likewise, I loathed being asked about my father’s job and writing “dependent” on the space for his occupation in my documents.

Such words as “disabled person” and “dependent” traumatized and disheartened me.

So, when I moved up to junior middle school, I slyly asked mum what about writing “welfare recipient” rather than “dependent.”

But I didn’t know that my words would deeply wound dad.

A welfare recipient means a person who retires for health problems and depends on social security. As a person with disabilities, my father had lived on state benefits and support from communities. He felt a pang of guilt for his child.

Fortunately, officials once came from an agency engaged in caring for persons with disabilities in Phyongsong. They told my father that persons with disabilities are entitled to work as members of society according to the Law of the DPRK on Ensuring the Rights of the Disabled. This brought great delight to him.

Afterwards, he was enrolled at the Phyongsong Jangwon IT Company with the help of the Korean Federation for the Protection of the Disabled, and studied online at Phyongsong University of Coal Mining Industry. After graduation he was appointed the chief of the company.

Thus, “dependent” disappeared from his occupation box.

My wish was fulfilled in July last year when I followed my parents on their economic motivational trip to the construction site of Jonwi street in the capital city of Pyongyang.

That day he readily asked me to accompany him on the trip.

I was somewhat surprised because he had never appeared before a crowd and, moreover, he had trouble with his heart.

But his wheelchair came to a standstill in front of me, and he warmly took my hands.

Addressing a group of builders, he proudly talked about the fact that disabled persons are leading a worthwhile life under the benevolent socialist system and the country’s law on ensuring the rights of the disabled. His speech won their heart.

Never before had I felt as proud of my father as on that day.

I sang a song loud with him. And I shouted to myself. “I am a son of a disabled man.”

In August my father joined the Workers’ Party of Korea. In April I graduated from Pyongyang Middle School No. 1 and was admitted to Kim Chaek University of Technology.

Now our family is earnestly following the road of patriotism to repay the benevolence of the country.

Kwon Wi Nam, a freshman at Mathematics Faculty of Kim Chaek University of Technology