We are all little Children

To love is life and life is light - So Scatter Light
Light is hard yet soft sometimes
It penetrates yet sometimes flicker
Bring it on in darkness
Through the night to guide others
Scatter light
To light their darkest most hour.
E.C

Emily, the nurses called her. I remembered the warmth of her hand and bird-claw-like fingers as she clinged to mine. A pair of sad eyes yet child-like. I missed her dearly. And I missed her singing so much.

She is around ninety year old. Frail little old lady when I saw her for the first time. So frail and thin is her body that it is reduced to skin and bones. She has the most wrinkled face that I have ever seen, with white fraying hair tied to the back in a tiny little knot. Her home is the hospice where all the other chronically ill people stay. On one occasion of a philanthropic event arranged, I was there to participate as a volunteer.

There were children present in the other room as well, also terminally ill. It was pre Christmas and we were gathered together to celebrate the festive season with them. I sat half balancing myself on the small chair together with the kids, my hands holding a bowl of food to be fed to a kid. The children looked the least tired as I imagine most terminally ill patients would. Some stared at their plates and frown but because they wanted to start the games soonest. Some eyes lighted at the array of toys we presented on the table. Restlessly fidgeting, all they wanted is play, the grand finale moment they look forward after their meals.

I spent some time patiently coaxing an adorable boy to finish his food. Around six years old, he was almost bald due to chemotherapy. The darkening skin around his neck showed the after effect of radiation. He swallowed the last mouthful of food, looked at me with a big smiley, and tugged at the corner of my skirt and struggle up onto my lap. So pleased with his climb, he pointed happily to a clown-faced poster that we are supposed to play games with later. I looked at him as if to carefully scrutinize every expression and movement. I reminded myself he was not sick but just a little unwell. .He is not a patient but just a little child..

Although each of us was assigned to take care of one group, I decided to break the rules to be with both. So while the children are playing, I slipped off quietly to the room where the old people are.I met Emily again and this time she extended her frail hand and grabbed mine as tightly as the little boy did. She looked up at me from her wheelchair with an infectious smile. Someone popped a teasing request that she was to sing for us and she happily agreed to the surprise of the requestor. Choosing the traditional 'Silent night' carol, she went off with a lovely belt of the hymns, and oh how her singing stopped every volunteer in their movements. The room hushed into a silence, as her voice echoed. Some volunteers started to look away to hide the awkwardness of tears welling up their eyes. No one, even the men can hide their emotions. She sang with love and we could sense it so well.

We knew she has touched everyone unfailingly this holy night. Amazing love I can't explain that came with her voice. She sang like a child.

Indeed we are all little children of God. Be it a child young or old as demonstrated by these two vastly different groups of people we serve in the hospice. And if you look further the hearts of these children I saw in the room today, so broken and weak in the bodies, yet beautifully endowed with God’s grace, you will see love and spirit that overflowed more than you thought you can give in return.

Last year, Emily left the hospice home to be with God in eternity.

Then Esau looked up and saw the women and children. "Who are these with you?" he asked. Jacob answered, "They are the children God has graciously given your servant."Genesis 33:5

Please help Holly

After ditching blogging for almost four months and back only to write this little note, I felt I have aplenty to update! But the most priority one is this.

Read http://hollyshearing.blogspot.com/, another NF victim that need help desperately in any way, even a word of encouragement do millions. She is already blind and going deaf soon if she does not go for an operation in time. Help Holly and you will help her son, Isaiah.

Read on.

They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Isaiah, 35. 10

The Unsung Heroine

I have not written any article dedicated to anyone before. So this is one dedicated not to a classical hero but an unsung heroine whose sacrifices and the surmountable battles she faced throughout her fight with Neurofibromatosis (NF) 2, crowned her one. NF2 is an illness of the nervous system that causes numerous benign tumors to grow in her body and which deteriorate her body functions including her hearing.

I thought she is one biblical hero. Not withstanding the reality that more clusters of tumors are growing in precarious locations in her brain, spine and nerves, I can’t describe more the emotional and physical turmoil that NF has put her through. What put me in awe and inspiration is that during her current and supposedly lifetime struggle against the illness, she still manage to spread humanity. Her innate goodness and divine spark made some classical heroes who pursued success, power and wealth, a washout in comparison.

Can you imagine waking up each morning knowing these unknown tumors are living and growing in your body? Sorry to pose such a question. The fear that arises far outweighs my imagination. For that matter, I know I will cowardly choose not to wake up and sleep forever. She does not.

In Elie Wiesel’s book, “Night”, the Nobel Prize winner writer depicted in one of his horrifying surviving scene in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz, where together with thousand of prisoners, they were supposed to move from one camp to another on foot in heavy snow storms. The troops of prisoners are commanded to run as fast as they could to reach the destination or face execution and death if they stayed behind.

Thousands of them ran along, slowing down would mean one will either be trampled on under the moving herd matching behind or froze to death in the bizarre winter.

Ran Elie did, without stopping for his mercy life. Despite days without proper food and an unhealed surgery on his foot, he sticked close to his beloved father whom he is determined not to leave behind. In his masterpiece, he brought forth the agony, anguish, injustice, and the delusion he faced during the prolonged ordeal.

As the only holocaust survivor in his family, he went through a life of darkness and extreme cruelity in a death camp, stripped of dignity, faced hunger, fought depression, seen living people being thrown to the fire furnaces and burnt to death – including his mum and sister. All these memories made clear his decision to write “Night” as a memoir. Although it was difficult to write, he is convinced that “what happened must not be forgotten.”

I see Yvoone Foong running a similar amazing race for survival, though facing a different adversity. I believed she never felt lonelier in her race, despite being cheered on by many of her avid readers of her blog and book. Yes, her vision flickers sometimes along the journey, but the inner light that she shines is unwavering and certain.

As a young adolescent, she has accomplished many and eludes righteousness and goodness in helping others.

She set up the Heart4Hope campaign.
Champion for her fellow unfortunate friends who needs help as much as she does.
Wrote a brilliant book and blog.
Endeavored to be a psychologist to help others.
Earned a Scholarship to study psychology.
'Ran aside' her beloved senile dad. She is the only child.
Started a medical fund to support her expenses.
Read her own lengthy medical reports and searches her own treatments.

I really can’t find better statements to articulate her story but I know she is one quiet heroine who partakes in God’s words and turn them to evergreen fruits while fighting for her life every day. This is the kind of heroism I honor. I hope the wonderful savior will bless her with infinite strength and crafts a path for her.

Read her story on http://www.yvonnefoong.com/


Help in anyway, if you can. Thanks.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."