A Sunday to Remember

Sunday.
A day when D.D. is normally at her best mostly by doing NOTHING!
But that Sunday, 29 June 2008, it was truly a Sunday to remember.

It's a different start and this time D.D. was finally moving her lazy arse and actually doing something different with her friends. I woke up early (well, 8AM on a Sunday is indeed early, you know!) and off we went to Hougang Avenue 1. 5 of us, we were doing a volunteer work. My friends joined me just by me asking them,"HEY, wanna be a volunteer to distribute food for poor people?" Most of them said yes without even blinking their eyes (if I could see their eyes at that moment, I believe they were not blinking).

Though the start was a bit shaky as we were late -.-" .. yep, not proud of that .. but we were finally there. It was a shaky start to be honest as when we arrived, 99% of the volunteers were already there and they were already briefed!!!!! ARGH! So, I was kneeling on the floor (trying to squeeze among the crowd) to go to the registration book and trying to make sense of what the organizer was saying. Honestly, most of the time I was looking at my friends and they were looking at me ... we were lost!

At this point you must be asking me,"HEY! What on earth are you talking about? What charity work are you doing? What? Who? Why? How?" Trust me I thought it was straightforward apparently it was but with a slight twist.


Image courtesy of www.HeartToHeartService.org

You see, I was amazed with the work of Teresa Hsu (pictured above), a lady of 111 year of age and still can't stop giving her life to others. Can you believe that at one point she had S$10,000,000 on her hand and she chose to give it all away by building a home for the aged and sick? Yes, she's that special soul that still exists in Singapore. Touched by her story and her work, I found her website at www.HeartToHeartService.org. I saw they have regular volunteer work where they gave food and necessities to the poor people. So, I signed up for it and asked a few of my friends too.

So, when we were there (yes, we were late), we found out that the places we need to distribute were not of walking distance from the meeting point. Most of them were far far away. We definitely need some kind of transport besides our beautiful legs. Looking at our super puzzled faces while announcing the destination, the organizer quickly said that we need to grab a destination if not we could sit there whole day just looking at his face. ARGH ... PANIC ATTACK!

Then, realizing we have no cars at all he did ask other volunteers (with cars) if we could tag along and thanks to a few kind souls, namely Raymond, Xue Yu (assuming her name is spelled this way) and Audrey, who took us along. Thank God both cars were going to the same location just different units. Hence, we began our volunteering journey with them.

We arrived at one of the prime location in Singapore, center of the city, somewhere in Chinatown. I was surprised the place is so near to the city center. Well, it's my first day, I was there with open eyes and minds.

Our first stop was supposed to be a gentleman but he's out working, so only saw his pregnant wife. Didn't spend much time there, only managed to give the necessities to the wife and off we go. Then we moved on to our second unit. This one was actually not part of the list. But Uncle Raymond chose to help this person on his personal account. At first the grandma refused to open the door even though she knew we brought something for her. Uncle Raymond knocked for sooooooooooooooooooo long, then she lowered down her barrier and pride, she opened the door for us. We went in.

It's a 1-Room apartment. In Singapore, basically 1 room means ... there's no bedroom, the whole place is a room by itself. Once you open the door, it's the room/living room/dining room, all together. There's a small little kitchen with small little bathroom (I believe, I didn't manage to see the bathroom). Aunty Wong spoke only Cantonese. Most of them spoke only Cantonese and hence I was limping in that area, I can't communicate! URGH! ... Anyway, doesn't mean I can't be there and be present.

So, we were in Aunty Wong's apartment and first thing you couldn't miss was the pile of papers everywhere. At every corner of the apartment. PAPERS! PAPERS! PAPERS! Newspapers, envelopes, letters, brochures, card boxes, etc. I believed she is in her 90s? or late 80s. Then she blabbered and complained about her life and stuff ... I couldn't really understand. Then the part I understood was when she mentioned - may be if I commit suicide will be better. HUAH!!!! I used my super basic Cantonese and said "can not!!!! you got new friends. can not commit suicide." -.-" GEEZ ....

Then we moved on to the next aunty, I think this one she's 92 years old. Aunty Chong? (Erm, can't remember, she belongs to the other group, our group was nosey and we also paid a visit). Wow, this aunty even though she's old and has arthritis, compared to the first one, her place was much neater. And you could tell in her youth she must be quite pretty!!!! Anyway, her Cantonese was like from another realm ... I couldn't catch a word at all! Even my Hongkie friend was scratching her head most of the time. Anyway, Aunty Chong mentioned her place was robbed! -.-" Yes! Some idiot broke into her place and took some of her belongings! Thank God she's personally okay! She's pretty traumatized by that. She said it happened twice. Once they barely managed to open the door but the second time they managed to get in! Horrible! Who will do such things to old helpless people??? CRAZY! Anyway, Aunty Chong too has given up on life most of the time. :( But she's pretty much able to let go and most of the time spoke with smile. She's quite a somebody. :-) When we were leaving, we asked her to stay inside. All of us want to make sure she's safe inside the house before we left, but she ran out again and wanted to say bye bye to us. So sweet and really heart breaking to leave her alone there but ... oh well ...

Third aunty, this one I really can't remember her name! -.-" I'm sorry, aunty. Her place had the most stuffs! I mean TV, 3 fans, red wine. HAHA! She even had some gold jewelleries. :p But she had one of the most tragic story, she was robbed S$2000 and even threatened to the knife-point! SIGH!!!! She still has her family too, in Malaysia I think. Well, but they are her nephews from her husband's side? Erm ... I'm not sure. But I think mostly from her husband's side. She said she didn't want to trouble them so she chose to stay alone. She too has given up in life. I don't think she see anything beautiful in life anymore. Then the volunteers will always use sister Teresa as example why they shouldn't give up in life. At 111 years old, she's still going strong. This example has made most of them paused and pondered for a while, but whether they chose to see it as a bright light ... that I'm not sure.

The difference between Teresa and the rest of the aunties are their take on life. Whether they are living for something bigger than themselves or not (like Oprah said in her speech to the Standford University graduates). Teresa's life has been based on the service for others and that goal itself has been bigger than herself. Equipped with her sense of humor, her love of knowledge (tons of books at her house) and finding joy in simple things (e.g. vanilla ice cream - her favourite), she has the reason to go on and stay happy despite her old age and fragility have also kept up with her. Even though she doesn't have blood-family anymore, but people that she has touched become her family.

On the other hands, surprisingly, those aunties who do have real family, are in fact being abandoned. :| What an irony. In the end, whether you have kids or not, you only have yourself to depend on. And the outlook on life is one of the most important thing to make sure one stays sane in this insane world. It's hard to see the beauty when all around you are the ugliest things ever ... I mean, come on! Someone who's younger and stronger were pointing a knife on a 90 year old lady, how sane can that be? How can one be jolly after going through that? Not only you almost lose your life but you lost SGD 2000 which is a lot for someone who's not working anymore. May be those are what she had until she died.

It's tough. And really. It's grim. And the fact is, anyone of us can fall to that lifestyle easily too if we are not careful with our own life. Yes, most of us who are reading this are definitely not 90yrs old or even 100 yrs old, we still have our "youth" (50s are the new 30s, don't you know? which means I am 7 :p) hence we may not see how those horrible things are even part of the reality. But to us who have seen it, it is real. It's an eye-opening experience. I'm not sure what my friends brought back with them with that life experience, to me, it's been a journey of compassion, a wake-up call, a mirror, a life lecture, a group of new teachers, a new perspective and a realistic discovery of the side of life I've never been.

To all of you who've involved in this activity, my friends who were willing to spare their beautiful Sunday morning, the organisers, the volunteers, the people who drove us there, the people who translated the lessons, the teachers of life, etc, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am looking forward to the next session though I still have no cars by then, but life somehow will work out by itself. :-)