I remember being shocked, so shocked that I couldn’t even hide it. Grandpa Zhou had told me before that his house was “like a messy, dirty warehouse”, but it wasn’t until I saw it with my own eyes that I believed him.
I was at church the other day when my church leader called me into her office. “Here,” she said, “These two bags are for you. I remember you telling me about the old man you met at the train station- you can give these two bags to him as a Chinese New Year gift.”
She smiled, and I, too, beamed. Those two bags had been left over from a community service project carried out over Christmas, where our church members had packed and delivered goodie bags to the needy and elderly living in one-room flats. In each bag was a sack of rice, a can of sardines, coffee powder, condensed milk, biscuits and tissue paper, practical things which I knew he would enjoy.
“Yes, we had these two bags left over from our previous event and I remembered your story about the old man. I want you to have them. Oh, they’re very heavy- take them with you only when you get a lift back home.”
I smiled in return. There were many things she could have done with those two bags- give them to other church members, pass them on to someone else, maybe save it for a later event… but of all those things, she remembered… me, and my little five-minute story about Grandpa Zhou.
“Thank you for remembering,” I beamed.
I lifted the two heavy bags up. My arms felt like toothpicks. They probably weighed more than ten kilos in total. Two problems surfaced in my mind- one, getting a lift home and two, even if I did give the bags to Grandpa Zhou, how on earth would he be able to lug them home himself? He lived a long way away.
There was only one solution- to deliver them right to his doorstep.
My brain ticks and I realise I don’t have a car and I can’t drive anyway. I do the only thing I know- ask a favour from a friend. I recount my story to him, and he replies with a ready and willing “Sure, no problem. Crucial thing is to get his address and yup, I’ll get the car.” The ready reply is fast and certain, unhesitating, and comes even before investigating the details, asking where Grandpa Zhou lives, weighing out the cost to himself. Just an unhesitating, ready commital to offer, to help, to love.
One day late at night, (Grandpa Zhou says, “Please come as late as you can. Eleven is best- because I earn the most money at night.”) my friend and I pick the two bags and him up, and drive to his place, far away. We go to his housing estate- it is a nice place, with three-room flats.
“Please don’t follow me up,” he pleads. He describes his place as jian bu de ren (shameful to look at), but we insist on helping him upstairs. We reassure him and convince him we mean well. It is a nice housing estate. I remember him describing his place as a warehouse and imagine it being cluttered and perhaps dirty as well. But I am unable to hide my shock and horrified amusement when we reach his home. It is beyond my wildest imaginings.
He opens the door. “Oh dear, now you’ve seen for yourself. Oh my… … I’m so ashamed.”
There are stacks and stacks of plastic bags, filled with toys, trinkets, paper, thrown-away items, household goods, trash stacked from the ground to the ceiling. Stacks and stacks of them, immaculately packed such that they fill his entire living room. They are stacked on both sides, from the ground to the ceiling, leaving only a tiny, tiny walkway in the middle for him to walk to his room and kitchen. The tiny, tiny walkway that is left is so small that my friend and I have to edge sideways to get through. I look up, and all I see are more bags towering over me, spilling with power-ranger figurines, decorative ornaments and other knick-knacks.
“These are all very valuable… I just don’t have time to sell them. “
He points to every item and quotes a price for each one. “This one, five dollars. This one, three dollars… That one, I think I could sell for a few dollars too…”
My friend exclaims, “Grandpa Zhou, if you sold them all, you’d be a millionaire!” We all laugh.
It is a spacious, three-room house, but cluttered, packed, and filled literally to capacity by junk valued as treasures.
Today it came to me- those plastic bags are like my Monster, our Monsters. Through our lives, we collect, pack and store away millions of tiny items along our journey. We pick them up, store them into our emotional warehouses, thinking they would be of use to us someday. Our emotional defense system hoards them- hoards achievements, things of pride, memories of hurt, things we think could come in useful for us and our defense system someday.
But they never do, they never do.
The more we live, the more we store and before we know it, these tiny items become… Monsters. Monsters that take away our space, take away who we are, and leave us nothing but a tiny passageway to breathe and find our way around; Monsters that make us feel so ashamed of ourselves; Monsters that we never meant to allow our tiny collection to grow into. We hold to them because of the worth we attach to them, but fail to realise how… useless they all really are. How pointless it is to hold on to them, how much better off we’d really be, how perhaps, we really would become millionaires if we put in the time to exchange them for something of value, things of value like forgiveness, trust and love- if only we would let them go. Let them go.
On my way to send another friend home to the train station today, we bump into Grandpa Zhou. He smiles at me and says hello. “This is Grandpa Zhou,” I say to J. She is one of my best friends, so she knows about his story already. She smiles back. Later, she hands me a ten-dollar note and tells me to use it to buy dinner for Grandpa Zhou over the next few days.
Angels, though not in disguise.
A lady at church who remembered my five-minute story about Grandpa Zhou and who saved two bags of goodies for him; a friend who so willingly and gladly offered his effort, petrol and time to help, whose ready, unhesitating reply came even before weighing the cost to himself, planning everything so I wouldn’t have to feel awkward asking for a favour; another friend who gave me money, a smile and the trust to bless someone else with the ten-dollar note she had given me. I remembered all the other random Strangers and acquaintances who had stuffed money into my palm before. More than their money, each of them gave me their trust, their precious, weighted trust.
Each and every one of them, special in their own ways- just wanting to use what they had to bless someone else, share their love. I wanted to ask each of them the question-
-Why? But why.
And I know the answer would be the same. It would be the same simple, resounding answer to to why my friends gave up their time and effort to help, the same simple resounding answer to why they did so even though they was nothing they could get out of it, the same simple, resounding answer to my retortive question of why I, we, should love the Ugly, Ugly Monster inside myself, inside ourselves.
It would be the same answer. The same beautiful answer to the question people always ask me, the answer I always answer back, the same answer to why through all this time I’ve been through the darkness and light, up and down, thrown inside out, my closest friends- you’ve always been there for me, loving me and my Monster inside. The same answer I always give Grandpa Zhou every single time he asks me why I stop to chat, why I buy food for him.
The same profoundly simple answer-
– that we love, because God first loved us.
It’s as simple as that.