Today, I would like to reflect on the immense kindness that I have received from others (including strangers) over the years.
For some of them, I don’t know who they are, but they have touched my life deeply & contributed to who I am today. For that, they will always have a special place in my heart. I will always be grateful for all that they have done for me.
In times of darkness, the kindness of others can truly be life-changing. They are like light bearers, holding on to the flames of love, light & hope, thereby allowing me to find my way out of the tunnel. Through their selflessness, they also ignited in me the desire to reciprocate their kindness by extending it to others who may need it as well.
The first person that came to my mind was my form teacher in primary 5 and 6.
As you may know from reading my other blog posts, I was struggling badly in my primary school days. For a few years, I completely lost the trust in everyone around me. I felt that nobody would ever view me with untainted lenses; almost every teacher that I came across viewed me negatively as irresponsible, slow, lazy, hopeless & simply a trouble-maker. I could sense from their body language how much of a burden I was to them, one that nobody wants to associate with. When I was finally “disposed” to the last class in primary 4, on the first day of class, the form teacher warned me straight in my face, “You better behave yourself. I have heard everything about you.”. She even assigned her favourite student to “watch over me”. My heart closed off to her right away.
After years of closing my heart to all the teachers & struggling at rock bottom academically, a human angel came to my life. She looked just like any other teacher with long black hair, fair skin, and an average height. But unlike any other teacher in my life, she had so much kindness & love for her students. She wasn’t there to pressure & discipline every student to do well academically, so as not to shame her or taint her reputation as a good teacher. She was genuinely dedicated to serve every student that she came across, to help them discover themselves & shine to the best of their ability.
As my English teacher, she gave us topics to journal every week & send to her. It was my first taste of journaling. I took pride in my weekly assignment & wrote down in my notebook all my thoughts & feelings for each topic. She was never the kind to hold a red pen to exhaustively mark out all the grammatical errors & typographical errors. She simply acknowledged all that we wrote, and returned us each assignment with lots of stickers pasted & and sometimes jot down words of encouragement for us. After a few months, she invited me to be a volunteer buddy tutor to lower primary students who needed help with English. It was the first time in my life that any teacher ever entrusted me with a duty like this. Through my experiences being a volunteer buddy tutor, I discovered my long-lost confidence in my own abilities, as well as my talent & joy in tutoring others. It also sparked off my journey, in the years ahead, of tutoring fellow classmates who may be struggling academically. She was definitely the reason behind my miraculous leap from rock bottom to the top few academically in class. Her magic wand was her strong belief in every student, accepting us as who we were, and not allowing other teachers’ negative feedback to influence her.
The second group that I would like to thank is the unknown volunteers who donated their blood platelets to me, when I needed them to sustain my life.
Can you believe that there are kind souls who regularly donate their blood, or parts of their blood, to the Blood Bank, without asking for anything in return?
I didn’t know of their existence, until I was a recipient of their donated blood platelets.
Without them, I may not even be alive today. Indirectly through their donated blood platelets, these kind souls gave me my life. May they be richly blessed for every day of their lives. 🙏🏻
Their existence reminded me of the selflessness & kindness that we all have, from deep within. Do we harden our hearts & bury these divine qualities within us, because of all the pain, injustice & suffering that we have been through? Or do we open our hearts & allow our divine qualities to shine, to be one of those light bearers to hold the flames of love, light & hope for others who may need it as well? Precisely when there is darkness all around us, we need more light to shine. Even if I am a baby candle of light, so long as I touch the life of even one person, I feel that my life is complete, worth living, and without any regrets.
They inspired me to join the Red Cross Society in my university days, by taking on projects for blood donation and rice collection, to repay their kindness. Indirectly, they remind me to treasure my life gifted to me, and to share what I can with others around me. Thank you. 🙏🏻💚
The third group that came to my mind was my friends whom I met on a student exchange program to Hong Kong many years ago.
Barely weeks into my student exchange program, my autoimmune condition relapsed. This time round, it manifested in the form of deep vein thrombosis, which was basically a blood clot lodged in my left calf muscle. One day, I woke up in my rented room & realized that I couldn’t move my left leg at all. I panicked & used my functioning right leg to hop to the nearest clinic for an assessment. Thankfully, where I stayed, the apartments were clustered together with facilities & amenities in close proximity. The doctor assessed that my condition was serious, and I needed to seek immediate medical attention at the nearest hospital.
As I was all alone in a foreign land, I reached out to my friends whom I met through the student exchange program. The problem in Hong Kong was the language barrier, as most people (including doctors) were comfortable to converse in Cantonese. I boarded a cab to the Accident & Emergency department of the nearest hospital. I still remember, it took me 6 hours of waiting to see the doctor. After a few hours of waiting, some of my friends from the student exchange program joined me.
For the first person who came, he resided in Singapore previously but re-located to Hong Kong with his family, and therefore conversant in Cantonese, English & Mandarin. How lucky I was. With him around as my translator, he paved the way for me to be properly understood & smoothly warded.
There were so many human angels with me during the student exchange program. They extended their help to me unconditionally. I was so blessed that I was with them. I couldn’t imagine how I may have ended up in my situation, without their kind assistance. Pardon me if my limited memory didn’t allow me to identify all of them in this sharing.
Then, there was this special friend who selflessly rendered her assistance to me when I was completely helpless in the hospital, worried about how I might be saddled with huge hospital bills. She notified the university & all my lecturers of my admission to hospital, retrieved my insurance plans, debit/credit cards, clothes & necessities for my stay in hospital. She also later coordinated for the university staff to meet me personally in the hospital to render their assistance to me, to bridge any gap that I may have in a foreign land. All thanks to her, I secured a space in the university hostel to shift to after I was discharged. I didn’t have to worry over anything, from university to money to necessities, because this kind friend took it upon herself to sort them out for me. Thank you. 🙏🏻
Of course, there were other human angels who would visit me from time to time. Another human angel decided to pray for my health & safety at a local temple, and passed me an amulet. That was after another unfortunate incident where I was stung by an insect and my left ankle was left swollen like a ball, and I had my second episode of rushing to the Accident & Emergency Department of the same hospital. With her prayers & amulet with me, the rest of my stay in Hong Kong was smooth.
My autoimmune condition had evolved from my junior college days of attacking my blood platelets, to the current form of mistakenly creating antibodies that make my blood more likely to clot. The doctors treated me with various blood-thinning medication to dissipate the blood clot in my left calf muscle, so that the blood clot doesn’t just dislodge & flow into my bloodstream to be stuck in other organs, which may lead to severe medical consequences. Thankfully, except for the usual pain from injections in hospital, I managed to be discharged within a week, and put on outpatient treatment for the remaining months before I returned to Singapore for further treatment.
The whole experience was memorable, yet not traumatic, because of the presence of these human angels. No matter where they are & what they do right now, may they always be deeply blessed. 🙏🏻
And then, there are human angels that appear in my life from time to time, for seemingly small incidents that leave a lasting memory in my mind.
One of them was a durian seller in a local supermarket. I couldn’t even remember how he looked like. I didn’t even know what his name was.
Back then, I started part-time work after junior college, while waiting for my results to be officially released. I was paid a meagre sum of $5 an hour, as a part-time fashion assistant. Having earned the money the hard way, I definitely learnt to treasure every cent much more.
One day, on Father’s Day, I decided to buy some durian for my family. I went to the local supermarket, and looked around at the durian seller’s booth to pick a few packets of durian within my limited budget. Instinctively, I focused all my attention on the cheapest range, which cost $5 a packet, equivalent to one hour of work standing around as a part-time fashion assistant. In my mind, I wanted to get 3 packets for my family.
Then, the durian seller appeared and asked me what I wanted. I told him that I would like to get 3 boxes of $5 durian for my father on this special day. He asked me to consider the more expensive variants from $8 to $10 and upwards, but I told him that I couldn’t afford them. I was all ready to pick 3 boxes of $5 durian, to pay at the counter. Then, the durian seller decisively told me that he would sell the durians to me at a discounted price, so that I could share with my father on this special day. He took out his marker, adjusted the price of each box downwards, passed me 3 boxes, and wished me well. My mind went completely blank, at a loss for words, as I paid only $15 for 3 boxes of durian originally priced at $8 each, and left.
Yet, many years later, I still remember his kindness extended to me. 🙏🏻
On a daily basis, there are so many blessings that I take for granted. By recalling the kindness of others (including strangers) around me, it reminds me that no matter how challenging life may be, I am never operating alone & independently. We are much more interconnected energetically with everyone around us. We can therefore choose to share our positivity & abundance with others around, and light up the lives of many more in our limited days ahead.
May I also learn from these human angels, and be like one of them in my days ahead. 🌞
Masters, would you have anything to share with us?
Dear children, when we express feelings of gratitude, it opens up our hearts & minds to receiving & acknowledging the kindness of everyone around us. We are interconnected as a society, how each of us think, feel & act can create ripple effect or contribute to the collective energies. Therefore, we are empowered to choose how we may, at an individual level, decide to contribute to our society. Would we like to perpetuate more fear-based programming, or would we like to spread more light, positivity & abundance to everyone around us? The choice is always with us.
We wish everyone all the best in your journey ahead! 🤍🌞
