To love what is beyond what you can see...

I know, the title sounds confusing, quirky, you name it... But I feel this title really fits some of my thoughts recently. This is a VERY overdue post. I started having thoughts and reflections about this matter last week yet I took so long before I finally made myself sit in front of my laptop and blog about this. As you read this, I hope that you too will reflect upon yourself, how you would react towards certain things, reflect upon your expectations, and hopefully, you will be able to love what is beyond what you can see...

Subject matter of the day: children. Being young (some even when we were kids), we already envisioned how we want our future to be - marry an eligible bachelor (or bachelorette), work as a doctor or lawyer or business and be successful in whatever career path we choose, earn as much money as we can, buy a car, live in a considerably comfortable abode, and have children. Some of us even give names to our kids already! We want a boy and a girl, triplets, or even a whole football team! Whatever it is, we already have this in our minds. Question is, what if it doesn't turn out as how we envisioned it to be?

I was walking around in Kluang mall one night and I saw this little boy in front of a gift shop. His height was probably up to my knees and he was a thin, bald, Chinese boy. At first, I just passed him by until something caught my attention - he was wearing a hearing aid. Now, this boy should be no older than 7 years old. He was looking at a teddy bear that was almost his size. Pointing at it, he looked at the mother who was quite far off and all he could manage to say were not words but sounds. "Ahh... Ahhh...." was all he could manage. For someone who is deaf, I guess articulation of words is not something that comes easy. But his posture, his actions and his tone of voice were all "words" - I could understand what he was trying to tell his mother - "Mom, I want that bear" or "Mom, look at that bear". Seeing him brought many flashbacks of the encounters I had with kids that we tend to give them a second look - either one of compassion, of pity, or of disgust. I remember a child when I was helping in a pediatric clinic. This child came into the clinic with frantic parents. They were worried as they did not know what was wrong with their child. He would not respond to any calls and mentions of his name but reacts to the sound of the lorry passing by outside the house. The doctor's recommendation - to go to the hospital for some scan that plays music through the boy's ears and then see if there is a brain response. In other words, there can only be 2 possible outcomes - he is either deaf or autistic. Seeing that kid makes my heart break.

On another occasion, I once knew of a family who used to be my neighbors. They had a son who had down-syndrome. He could not function like how his peers could at the same age. He needed alot of care from the family in terms of feeding, changing, bathing etc. But I saw the patience in the mother and how she loved the child the same as how she loved the other child who was normal. She took time to feed him, care for him, even discipline him. Yet, underlying it all, I saw something beautiful - a love of a mother for her child.

All these caused me to take a moment and think. We all have dreams and how we want our kids to be and grow. But if I get a child who belongs to this category, will I still love the child the same was as I would love a normal child, if not more? Would I be able to ignore the social stigma and prejudice that society has for such children and see the beauty beneath the child's disability?

All of us have one chance or another at meeting such children. Questions for you to ponder: 1. Will you be able to accept your child as he or she is, even if the child is disabled? 2. Will you take a step out of your comfort zone and accept these children as who they are? Will we choose to see beauty instead of disabilities? 3. Will we be able to love beyond what we can see? If we can all love beyond what we can see, the world can be a better place, even if its just a little.

Posted in: thoughts