“Oh I see it’s your birthday today, Thomas.” Mrs Lai commented while I smiled sweetly and waved at Thomas. Unfortunately, the smile wasn’t returned.
Thomas clutches on to his bag, looking uneasy. He seemed to want to say or do something at that moment, but not quite sure how to.
‘Are you celebrating your birthday today, Thomas?’
After s second or two, something seemed to have occurred to Thomas. He fumbled around in his bag and hands a packet of seaweed to Mrs Lai shyly.
“Why, that’s so kind of you” Mrs Lai thanked him.
Thomas’ gaze flickered around and landed in my direction, for the first time realizing the presence of Mrs Lai’s friend standing beside her. He thwarted his glance immediately, a hint of apprehension surfacing. Moments later, after considerable deliberation, much to my surprise, he brings up, uncertainly, a packet of the seaweed in my direction.
Although momentarily stunned by the unexpected touching gesture, I managed to put out my hand.
“Oh, thank you Thomas! A very happy birthday to you Thomas!” It was a reflex reaction to me, but certainly not to Thomas. Apparently, the signal transmission of a response to this behavior is not a familiar route in his brain. He looks around nervously for a short while, once again at a loss as to what to do next.
At last, with momentous effort, he closed his hand around mine, slowly, but surely, he did.
My smile grew.
All the while, I never did manage to meet his eyes though.
Despite that, I could help but feel proud of Thomas. Not only had he been interacting with his peers by giving them something for his birthday, but Thomas also remembered the procedures during social interaction! What's more remarkable is that he managed to handle more than one person at a go!
Well done, Thomas! How I wish you could hear and also be able to comprehend this.
Thomas' parents were going to give him a surprise today.(His father is a doctor by the way.)
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That was one of the child I’ve interacted with today. Out of the few that I did today and the hundred-over-strong student population for the two days I was there, I’ve only made eye contact with one child. The boy was guided by the principal step-by-step during the whole greeting process though.
"Good," "..morning," "Teacher" "..XXX" he spoke word-by-word, before being prompted again to put out his hands to shake mine.
There are a lot of things which I take for granted. Not just the materialistic aspect, but, something as negligible as…normalcy. Something as basic as taking in information and responding to it. Something as simple as knowing how to eat a meal, how to sit, how to touch, right down to saying ‘hello’ to people..
It needs not just a lot of patience, but an infinitie amount of it. Moreover you don’t get immediate satisfaction as you would from a normal kid who will drive all the weariness away with a grin or laughter or show some form of affection that will make the day worthwhile.
Am I up to the lifelong commitment to the challenge?
P/s: I still can't forget how spontaneous Terence was and went 'Round 2!' during the money counting exercise. How eager it was to check the task list. How fixated he was with using my red pen. How his face seemed to light up as if he recognising me (or was it the principal? (>_<)) when I visited him in class after that.
I think I'm already fallen in love with the kids.
Another of my ‘just wondering’ series again. This was actually backdated to..last week (? ) during the mad rush to meet my dissertation paper deadline. My mind wanders everywhere right to the most trivial matters at the back of my mind except the imperative task I have on hand. While that is definitely not the modus operandi I should be following, that’s just how eccentric/ bizarre my kinetics are.
What would it be like to be not leading a normal life? To be physically disabled, for instance? How handicapped would I be? How much of a bother would I be to people around me? How much of a discrimination will I suffer?
I’ve been running into quite a few cases these days. An old man with very severe varicose veins (? Or decomposing legs as a result of diabetes?). It looked like it took every ounce of his strength to bear with the pain to manage a shuffle of a step. The only thing I could help with was to carry the bag of things he was carrying…D: He barely made any progress the few minutes I had waited before my bus arrived. D: Whatever had forced him to end up doing such an arduous task?
Just on Tuesday, I witnessed a man on a wheelchair had difficulty crossing just a simple path from the library to the nearby shops because the pathway was uneven. He looked rather helpless at the elevated part of the road and had to reverse in attempt to gain some momentum in order to ride across the ‘hill’. I was too much in a daze to notice it initially until an Indian teenager rushed up to help him. How heartening.( Let’s close an eye to the fact that he was smoking). The well-trodden path was actually one which hundreds of people use every day but how many people would actually realize that something as simple and normal as crossing a path would pose such difficulty for someone who unfortunately is not-so-normal? And then I started pondering about how inaccessible the neighbourhood is for a handicapped, and how much courage it would take for someone like him come out of the comfort of the house to travel to a public place despite knowing the inconvenience that these places pose, and of course, not to mention, having to face the scrutinity of public. The uncle who’s selling lottery ticket at the entrance of the NTUC is perhaps forced to do so due to his circumstances.
To the admirable courage that the two men possess, I salute them.
Most of all, what can I do for them? What can do for people with disabilities?