5 shirts.

The old man stood me up. For half an hour I waited, and paced up and down the hospital lobby, peeling my eyes for a glimpse of the old man. I was annoyed, very annoyed. I had taken the trouble to pack the items for him, lug the big bag to hospital (this internship requires us to report to hospital on some sundays), and had rushed down to meet him.

I was annoyed.

Then I wondered, how much convenience does it take to convince one to help? How much convenience do we expect before we are joyful in lending a helping hand? That question stung me like a boomerang, and reminded me of that day when we met.

He was a thin, tiny old man with a chest so thin that he might have disppeared sideways. Dressed in a grimy collared shirt and old-fashioned black pants, he squatted by the side of the path leading from the train station to Singapore General Hospital.

He got up, tottered a few steps forward, then squatted down again.

I was curious. Everybody was. People walked past him and stared. Another elderly man with frosted hair stood in front of him, just staring, before walking off.

There was something about him which perplexed me. For he wasn’t squatting in the way old men squat sometimes by the road, faced out, with shoulders back and their hands thrown casually across their knees. He was crouching, his back facing the sidewalk instead and looked like he was huddling himself.

I had taken the morning off from my internship, was there for my regular follow-up appointment and on my way back to Tan Tock Seng Hospital to attend a lecture.

More people walked by.

A kind Filipino nurse saw him and walked by. Our eyes locked briefly and she hesitated before going on her way. She stopped, I stopped. At that moment of uncertainty, I realised it takes a certain amount of energy to overcome one’s inertia to stop in one’s tracks for another. She was obviously rushing off to the wards, I was rushing off to a different hospital. Our hesitation gave each other courage and I said loudly in case he was hard of hearing, “Uncle, ler si mi dai ji?”

Hokien is a very rough language, even if one is trying to convey a gentle sentiment. Literally, the words meant, Uncle, what’s your problem?

I thought about that incident 2 months ago when I suffered from the worst menstrual cramps I’d ever had in my life after delivering some items to a patient and was left hobbling home by myself, almost paralysed in pain, with no one offering to help me and was angry. As I looked at him, I was angry. He had been there for some time, why did no one stop for him? Is it inconvenience that we are afraid of?

I thought, how much convenience do we need to be convinced to stop for someone else?

“Jin tia,” he said. Very painful. “Wa si lai kua lokun eh, kui dou.” I came to see the doctor, just had an operation.

He lifted his grimy shirt to show me the full glory of his two scars emblazoned across his chest.

One subcostal scar and one laparotomy scar. That must have been quite a big operation.

I was angry.

Just how much does it take for us to stop? Why did I hesitate before stopping, and why is it that we fear being inconvenienced so much. I thought about that time when I was in such pain and a taxi driver stopped for me as I hailed for him, then immediately drove off again after he had a closer look and saw that I was pale from so much pain. What is it that we fear?

The nurse was very kind. “Uncccle, where are you going?” I translated it for her.

“Chinatown,” he said in mandarin. “I’m walking there.”

It would have taken anyone a good half hour to get there. The sun was blazing hot. “Zhu na li?” Where do you stay? I asked in mandarin.

“Chinatown hawker centre. I sleep there.”

I suggested going back in a cab. It would not cost a lot of money.

“Wo zou lu hu jia, wo mei you qian!” Vehemently, he cried out, even in his pain, “No! I will walk home, I have no money!”

He calmed down a little after I handed the nurse a red note. We walked him to the taxi stand as he hobbled unsteadily, but I had to rush back for a lecture. The nurse offered to accompany him until he was safely in a cab.

“Why does your tummy hurt after seeing the doctor?”

“It hurts pretty often. When I am hungry, I eat food that is leftover by people who eat there. My tummy hurts sometimes when I am hungry.”

Hunger, and we’re naive enough to think the phenomenon doesn’t occur in Singapore.

“Uncle, do you drink or smoke?” I asked firmly.

“No, never!”

I struggled briefly with giving him a fifty-dollar note, then eventually succumbed when I was reminded how easy it is to part with a hundred dollars each time I go for physiotherapy. Or fifty dollars for two pairs of shoes, for that matter.

“Uncle, this is my name and my number. You call me if you need something. And this is not for buying beer okay, use it to buy food. Okay? ” I was using my Sunday School Teacher Instructive Voice.

He nodded. I left him with the nurse, and went on my way.

Days later, at noon, as I scrambled to set up my powerpoint presentation on Deep Vein Thrombosis to present to my senior consultant, he called.

“Wei Jia ah?” he said in mandarin. “Mr. Tay here. Yar. I’m calling. I need something.”

“Yes, what is it?” I said, as I scrambled to download my presentation into the computer while everyone waited for me.

I sighed, chiding myself for so freely giving away my number and expecting to be disappointed by a demand for money.

But the words thereafter melted my heart.

“Ni you yi fu ma?” Do you have clothes?

Clothes. That was all. He asked to meet me in Chinatown hawker centre, at his “home”. But the days have been so hectic I asked if he could meet me on Sunday (today) at Tan Tock Seng instead.

Mr. Tay has a long-drawn voice which sounds chronically tired, as if the voice had run ten miles, run out of breath and then revived itself to speak.

“ I will wear black so you can find me. What colour are you wearing?”

“Blue,” I said, as I thought of a bright blue dress to wear. Last night, he called twice to confirm our meeting, as if I would forget something so important to him, “because I have no more clothes to wear.”

“Don’t bring too many. Just a few will be enough.”

Today, I waited. He didn’t show up. More than an hour later as I headed to church, he called from a public phone. I was now rushing to church for a meeting and was in the train. “I can’t meet you anymore, Mr. Tay, why didn’t you come?”

“Wei Jia ah, I fell down yesterday so I couldn’t walk to meet you. You can come to Chinatown now. I’m at a coffeeshop at Block 34.”

“How come you didn’t tell me sooner? Or last night when you called again? I brought all your stuff and waited for you.”

I was disappointed and a little frustrated. I asked myself: If you had known it would be this inconvenient to help, would you still have offered it?

I got out of the train, and into a cab. If I cabbed there and to church, I would still make it in time. But the taxi driver said, “Block 34. It doesn’t exist. All the blocks in Chnatown I know are triple-digit blocks. Or at least that’s what I know.”

Frazzled, I tumbled out of the cab. And then, in the interest of time, caught another straight to church.

My mind was in a mess.

If the world were a simple, happy, Predictable place, Mr. Tay would have been right there at Tan Tock Seng waiting for me, we would have had a yummy lunch together at the food centre, we would have gone grocery shopping together at Novena Square and we would keep in touch. We would be best of friends. Can you hear birds chirping?

But life is as such. That he fell. He didn’t find a public phone in time to tell me in advance. I don’t drive and so didn’t think of meeting him at his “home”. The taxi driver said Block 34 doesn’t exist. And I had another meeting to attend.

Life is as such. He sleeps in a hawker centre and eats food leftover by people.

All I could think about was what went through my head when I offered my help. Was it conditional, that I would do so only if it was convenient to me? After all, I did ask him to travel to Tan Tock Seng where I was doing my Sunday rounds. What if he turned out to be demanding, how would that change things? And what if he wasn’t being demanding, just simply… elderly. He’s just a little old man needing a few clothes.

Am I too important for him? Do I feel so? Me with my “all-important” medical exams and my wardrobe of Mango and Zara and G2000 and Threadless T-shirts?

Just as I contemplated these thoughts in the taxi, my phone rang again. It was the 4th time he was calling me because 10 cents run out pretty quickly on a public phone.

“Wei Jia ah, ni you lai ma?” You coming?

I couldn’t make it anymore. Time didn’t permit, and I wasn’t sure where he was. I wondered if I should just leave him, wondered if I had been stupid or naive to entertain him in the first place. Maybe he’s a confused old man. Maybe he’s disoriented. Maybe, it’s just 5 shirts. It’s no big deal even if I left things as they were.

Then I wondered if I was having all those thoughts because Chinatown is a crazy maze of a place and I didn’t want to go through the trouble of looking for him just to deliver 5 shirts.

“We’ll have to arrange again,” I said, and thought about another two 36-hour shifts I would have mid-week and next Sunday. “I’m sorry, I’ve work during weekdays, maybe next weekend? Call me on Friday night and we’ll arrange.”

“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

How convenient do circumstances have to be before I offer my help to someone else? How much must I think the other person deserves it and is worthy of my time? Do I think too little of 5 shirts?

Then I thought about how convenience is never a consideration for God, even when I ask Him for the most ludicrous of things. I thought about the many times I had prayed for things seemingly impossible to obtain, and somehow He made it clear to me that pains were taken to orchestrate something so divinely arranged that things happened in ways which stunned me. I thought about how undeserving I am of many things, my bicycle for example, but God still blessed me anyway. And I thought about all my tiny, seemingly trivial prayers that God still hears and answers.

Is my prayer for a good night’s rest or my leg to be healed to small for Him to listen to? Is 5 shirts too insignificant to me?

I’m pretty sure God has a lesson to teach me through this.

So this is the plan. We’re going next week and we’re going to hunt him down to deliver 5 shirts to him. I say “we” because I’m looking for someone with a big heart, sense of adventure and A CAR to come with me. It doesn’t matter if we’ve met before. Friends were always strangers before. Email me if you’re available next saturday for an hour 🙂

We’re going to find out where this “Block 34” is and Mr. Tay is going to get his 5 shirts.