Rainbow on a day without sunshine
ON Tuesday, I tasted the milk of human kindness when I least expected it.
I am a person with disability, or orang kurang upaya (OKU) as it is better known in this country, who is over 80 years old.
I was very exhausted, disgruntled and annoyed at having to find my way to the Government Offices Complex in Jalan Duta to answer some unnecessary questions about my financial situation and then having to make my way across to the High Court Building to have a Commissioner of Oaths swear to a statement I had to make to satisfy the authorities. All this was at some cost to me in taxi fares.
Tired out, I sat down at one end of a row of seats while waiting for my companion who was helping me through the ropes. At the other end of the row sat a friendly-looking young man so I let off steam to him, asking why the authorities were so unfeeling and unhelpful as to make poor people go through so many difficulties for some simple procedures. He was in no position to answer my queries, of course, but he listened.
Having exhausted my complaints, I began a very short conversation with him during which I found out that he was young enough to be my grandson and that he was a lawyer waiting for a friend to go for lunch with him.
At this point, he started gathering his things, and he opened his wallet. I watched, thinking he was looking for a name card to give to me. But no! He fumbled through the notes he had in his wallet, pulled some out and pushed them at me. I was stunned and protested saying: “I can’t take that!” But he dashed off after his friend who had just appeared, saying: “Think of it as taxi fare from your grandson.”
I was incapable of running after him; I’m handicapped remember? I kept saying “You can’t do that !” but he’d gone. I looked at what he’d passed to me and saw that it was RM60.
I was totally thunderstruck, quite embarrassed and then wondered if he would have to borrow lunch money from his friend. I also wondered what to do with the money. I did not even know his name so how could I return it to him? Nor could I explain to him that I was not trying to ‘‘scam” him by telling him a sob story.
All I had done was to get rid of my frustration at having to deal with hard-faced officialdom and to hope somebody would understand the difficulties poor handicapped people feel when they are put in positions where they have no choice.
For example, why force poor people, handicapped or not, to find their way, at some ill-affordable expense, from one massive building to another a distance away just to get a Commissioner of Oaths to sign a statement? Why not station a Commissioner of Oaths in those government buildings where their servic- es would be needed?
Anyway, this young man was empathetic and listened... and acted! I could not tell you how grateful I felt to him, not so much for the money (which incidentally I shall give to some charity I hope he approves of ) as for putting a rainbow in my sky on a day which had been without any sunshine.
How wonderful it was to meet someone so young and so thoughtful. It gave me hope not for him alone but for all young people like him, and for our country if all of his generation are like him. I am so grateful to his parents, grandparents, teachers and whoever had a hand in his upbringing. They can bring rainbows in the skies for everyone. May he and others like him be blessed in everything they do.
As I am old, I am not sure I can recognise him if I see him again so I hope he will greet me so that I can thank him personally.