Some people say impossible does not exist and those who will never give up are capable of everything. The story of Nicu, a man who has been going through hard times and overcame every obstacle in his life and moved on, is an example that these sayings are true. 11 years ago, he lost his eyesight, but he wanted to demonstrate everyone he will never give up and became an origami master. He works day by day for months to build Christmas trees, decorations or Santa Claus paper artworks to give them as presents to his friends or for charitable causes to organizations that help people in need.
For Nicu, a 39 years old man living in Bacău county, life has changed dramatically since 1998. On a Sunday night, he went with his girlfriend in a club to have fun. There he met a group of men who wanted to capture his girlfriend and threatened him that he will be beaten if he disobeys. Nicu tried to avoid the conflict, but he ended up in hospital with lot of injuries. In spite the surgeries suffered, he lost his eyesight to the left eye. Because he suffered from diabetes, he started to see less with his right eye too. In 2002, he became dependent on dialysis and his state of health worsened. He did all he could to save the other eye, but because the surgeries caused him lots of pain, he decided in 2004 to kill the optical nerve and give up to his right eye and became blind forever.
He was depressed for six months, but he understood he had to move on so he started to discover new hobbies. He first touched an origami piece when he paid a visit to his nephews who gave him an artwork.
“I was very impressed of that object. I touched it for half an hour. I said I need to try to do that myself. I took a piece from that construction, I put it into my pocket and I spent all that night trying to make origami pieces.”
With lots of patience, ambition, imagination and a good memory, he turned this activity into a hobby. He started from small constructions and reached to build some that are taller than he is.
“In 2014, I built an origami Christmas tree of 2,10 meters height with paper decorations. I worked from 1st of February until 15th of October. 40.000 pieces were needed for the tree and almost 5000 for the decorations. This year, I built a Santa Claus construction using 61.000 pieces.“
He works hard day by day at home or on his way to the dialysis center so as to create real artworks. He uses his money to buy the paper and the glue and the only support he has is his girlfriend Ștefania who helps him to cut the paper. He does all the other work. You may be wondering how he manages to match the colors. He found an original method for that.
“I put a hint on each bag in which I have the pieces. I do a knot for the withe color, I use a post-it for the red color and so on for each color.”
His artworks have some charitable aim and go to NGOs from all over the country or in the winter camps organized for the dialysis addicted children so as to bring a smile on their faces. Some of them are sold in order to earn money for the materials used.
Nicu is also keen on technology, so he equipped his computer with a special soft and started blogging, giving the people who are dependent on dialysis the information needed about the disease.
“I started writing on my blog because when I started searching for information about my disease, I did not find anything about it. Then I started reading books and I thought of sharing the information with the others about dialysis or about kidney transplant.”
All the obstacles he has encountered in his life made Nicu become even more grateful for each day and he is an example of ambition and optimism.
“I’ve learned to cherish every single day in my life, to be optimistic, not to take things as granted and to find solutions for every problem. Surely you can get over unpleasant situations if you really want. No matter how hard life is, you will discover beautiful things worth fighting for so as to move on.”
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