Temporary Assignment.

From afar, I thought she was 60.

She had dark, wrinkled skin which drooped in excess around her face and limbs, and a receding hairline. Her bedsheet, from afar, looked dirty and grimy.

But she was 20. Her sheets were dirty because of all the dry skin which had flaked off her body.

On a closer look, I then saw that her eczema had been so poorly controlled that dry, scaly skin carpeted not only her arms and legs, but had spread to her face, her torso, and her scalp. Her legs had turned into a dark, deep purple. Her hair was now falling out because of her dried skin. She looked tired, her eyes had a sleepy, faraway look, like old, old wine.

As part of my posting in the Infectious Disease department, my team was there to review her to see if she was in danger of a bacterial superinfection, since her friable skin all over made her susceptible to infection. Her case notes stated she lived with her boyfriend and had run away from home. She had cut herself before. The team raised their eyebrows. I did too. After all, aren’t we all quick to judge. Another one of those cases, we tell ourselves.

After interviewing her about her medical condition, we found out she had grown up with her foster mother. Intrigued by this, I stayed back alone to talk with her.

Apprehensive, I fumbled a little. I wasn’t sure how she would react to me.

“Hey, you tok like dat your whole life ah? So gentle so soft, how to hear you? Speak up la,” she said.

So I did. ” You’re very strong,” I said. “Living by yourself, at the age of 20, working and earning a living by yourself. You’ve got a lot of guts.” We conversed in mandarin.

“Haa. If you were in my shoes, you’d survive, too.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” I meant it.

“Do you have any other siblings?” I asked.

“I’m an orphan. I don’t know where my biological family is. I was born in Philippines, my foster mother who’s a very old lady brought me up by herself. I was her only foster child. She didn’t want to get married because she doesn’t trust men.”

” I see. Was she good to you?”

“Yea. Of course, she was a real nice woman.”

“That’s great to hear,” I said. I then confided that I’d been seriously considering adopting children, so I wanted to learn more about her experience. (Don’t worry, I do intend to get married when the time is right, and I think pregnancy is a beautiful experience- I just think there’re a lot of unwanted children in the world who can benefit from being in a family.)

After building some rapport with M, I finally asked, “Why did you move out?”

And then came the onslaught. The truth which no one knew. The truth which was hidden, and so made everybody roll their eyes at yet “another delinquent case”.

“She died. My foster mother died on my birthday. I was 14.”

Silence.

“And it was my fault.”

It was her birthday that day. Her foster mother and her had had a tiff. Feeling guilty for spoiling her daughter’s birthday, her foster mother went out with another relative to buy her a cake. On crossing the road, her foster mother dropped something. She turned back to pick it up.

Upon doing so, a car hit her. And she died.

Time suddenly stopped. It almost felt surreal to hear a story like that, with such dramatic tragedy.

“Do you know what she went back to pick up? According to the lady who was with her, it was a key chain she dropped. It was the key chain I had made for her when I was in Primary 4, when I was 10. Why she would turn back to pick up such a lousy key-chain I made for her I will never know. But I know one thing, if I could turn back time, I would’ve just let her nag at me. I wouldn’t have talked back to her that day. “

Since then, M started to work and study to support herself.

“You know, people at my workplace, at Kentucky Fried Chicken where I work as a cashier, they look at my skin, my face and say all sorts of nasty things- like I have AIDS or some dreadful disease. But I will always remember one thing my foster mother told me- that you can’t take in all the crap this world has to give you. You just gotta know for yourself what’s true and what isn’t.”

When I spoke to her, she was neither bitter nor resentful. That surprised me.

“How did you get by? Was there a force or some belief which helped you get by?”

“Duh. Of course. God, what else? I would’ve died otherwise. I believed in God the year my mother died. He’s been watching my back ever since. I tried to commit suicide once, before I believed in God, but I now know, life is just a temporary assignment, a trial which we need to overcome. Surely God has a divine plan for all this. We just don’t know.”

We’re so quick to judge. Perhaps now, we even judge her more harshly for believing in God and living with a boy et cetera et cetera. But have I considered her circumstance? Would I have done better had I been placed in her shoes? She is only 20, but she spoke with such wisdom, distilled only by the early cruelty of life.

I learnt a lot from her that day. I learnt, that resilience is a powerful force. But God is more powerful, still. How anyone could’ve survived through all those years of feeling abandoned, facing tragedy, loneliness and depression without ending their life, and even emerging with a relatively positive and mature attitude to life, without bitterness nor resentment, amazes me.

“I know He’s watching over me.”

We talked a lot more. The next morning, I gave her some things precious to me and a small handbook copy of “What on earth am I here for?” from “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren.

“I love it!” she cried.

“You know last night when I couldn’t sleep and was asking God for forgiveness for all the stupid things I’d done, especially what I got myself into with this boy, I thought of you and pleaded to God for a 2nd chance. After I get discharged, I want to leave this boy. And get my life together again. Attend church, do something meaningful. I believe God has given me this terrible skin disease as a test, this is just a temporary assignment, and when I overcome it… … “

I found the words she could not say, “… and when you overcome it, your story of resilience will be a great encouragement and testimony to the people around you. Your words will carry the power the words of another may not have, because you’ve been through something very special, God’s assignment for you.”

I thought about my old illness, my injury, my fracture and reminded myself of the same thing. I thought about A Taste of Rainbow and saw how it would have absolutely no power if I had not gone through and out of depression, since its message really is to be open about our struggles so we can seek help, move on in life. What’s there to be ashamed of? So what if people look at you differently? Their time might come, too.

What we experience now, is merely a transient sort of suffering which is preparing us for a future. I like to believe, that the greater the suffering, the greater will be the divine glory which will be revealed at the end. Resilience, humility and an overcoming spirit are priceless, glorious things to behold in heaven.

Behind every book was sadness. Kitesong was written out of pain and disappointment, Rainbow was written out of pain and mental suffering, my third book which has been submitted to my publisher was written out of heartbreak. The fourth one is in my head. It will be written out of pain from my injury, and it will be about… bicycles.

He does not let any of our sufferings go to waste. Every experience is significant. Every trial is an assignment.

This morning when I went to see her to give her the book, I pointed at a page which said Your Life is a Temporary Assignment, just like what she had told me, and encouraged her to be compliant on her medication, because “if you can’t take care of the little things God assigns to you, like this trial for instance, how can you expect Him to entrust you with greater things in life?”

We parted. And I realised as usual, that I had learnt far more from her than she ever did from me.

She helped me to see, that life on this earth is only but a temporary assignment, and if nothing here on earth satisfies that profound sense of emptiness in our hearts, it is only because… we’re not Home yet.