Starfish.

I was half expecting her not to show up.

After all, people had been telling me over and over, “You can’t save the world.”

It made me think of the Starfish story our teachers used to tell us in school, about a little boy who would pick up stranded starfish every day and throw them back into the sea one by one. An old man scolded him and asked what difference his foolish actions made, to which the little boy replied as he threw back yet another starfish into the sea, “It makes a difference to this one.”

Maybe she wouldn’t show up. Maybe, just like what everyone else was telling me, I was a fool for trying to help, and perhaps, even a fool for entertaining her, believing her story. Silly me.

Two days ago, while I was doing some reading at Starbucks, M, a 20-year old patient I had met some months ago called me. “You got twenty dollars to lend me? I need it. No money for transport.”

Later, after a tussle of words, she texted me, “You got church on Friday? I free. I want to go. Want to mit?”

I remember the day I first saw her at the hospital. Her skin was black and flaking, her hair was falling out and she looked like an old lady from afar. Her eczema was so bad that not a square inch of skin was spared. Her entire body was covered in dry, thick scales which peeled off her skin like old paint off an old tin roof.

Born in the Philippines, M was brought to Singapore, and adopted by an elderly Singaporean woman, who died on her 14th birthday after they had had a tiff. Her foster mother had gone out to buy a cake for her, and on turning back to pick up a key-chain made by M which she had dropped, got hit by a car. She died immediately. Since then, M started to work and live independently.

“Sure,” I said, “We can meet. Can I introduce you to my friend? From Social Service unit of my church. If you want a bit more help, she can help. Meet you at 3pm at the train station, okay?”

You can’t save the world. You’ll just get hurt. Don’t waste your time. See, that’s why you don’t have a boyfriend, you spend your time on all these people who waste your time. Go out, have some fun.

But there she was, standing there, drinking bubble tea from the shop nearby and a piece of Old Chang Kee chicken. “My first meal of the day. Need the sugar, no choice.”

Her hair had grown back a little but her skin was still dark, patchy and scaly. She looked grimy from head to toe, especially in her off-shoulder blouse and shorts. Now I understood why she got fired, because “Boss say customer see me also get scared. Kena sack lor.” Even the taxi driver and fruit stallholder seemed taken aback when they saw her.

The social worker and M talked for a long time. I sat there, with my back slumped- someone had told me to be prepared, that perhaps, all this was a hoax. Had I been stupid enough to believe her?

“Can I have your identity card?” said the social worker.

And there it said-Country of Origin: Philippines. Date of Birth: 1990.

She wasn’t lying. Even though her skin made her look 60, and the pains and reality of life made her sound as if she was 40, she was truly only 20. Younger than me and eking out a living for herself, living in a temporary shelter because she had the courage to stick by her promise she made to me the last time, “Ok, Wai Jia, I promise to leave the boy I am staying with. I promise to pray to God for a new lease of life.”

“Now,” said the social worker, “I just need to ask some personal questions about your expenditure if you don’t mind. How much do you spend on food daily?”

“Three dollars.”

“What?” I interrupted, “Three dollars for a meal you mean? She’s asking how much you spend a day on food.”

“Three dollars. I have one meal a day now. Can’t afford to spend more than that.”

I slumped back in my chair. Three dollars a day. Three dollars can’t buy a soy latte from Starbucks.

After taking a detailed history from her, the social worker disappeared. “I’ll see what I can do.”

So M and I talked. Or rather, she talked incessantly and I listened. Hers, was the obvious verbose one-sided conversation of someone who had not had heartfelt conversation for a long time. “Sorry I tok so much. At the shelter there, no one tok to me. Only got a lot of other sad people crying there, always I comfort them, tell them life not so bad la, can go on one. Sometimes I very bored, I tok to the Telly-Tubby my foster mother gave me when I was a kid. I still keep leh, so long already, one eye come out already. Purple colour one. The other colours so ugly. Last time you hit the tummy of the Telly Tubby it can say ‘I love you!’, budden now, cannot, so old already, so I tok to it lor. No one else to tok to. Sometimes I think I crazy already.”

The social worker returned, with forty dollars topped up in M’s transportation card.

I sat there, slightly stunned, fingering her pink identity card. She was real. Her story was consistent. Hers, was a genuine case.

M limped out of church. Her lower back was aching due to a urinary infection she had because of long hours at her old work place. She had just got a course of antibiotics from her doctor yesterday. As we left church, I stood amazed. I felt encouraged, I felt God’s presence as He walked with us out of the building. God had honoured me as I had honoured Him.

It made me think about all the things the other people had said, that she could’ve been a fake, that she might not show up, that there’re too many people in the world to help.

But she was real. She showed up. She asked for twenty, but got forty. She wanted my help, but got a social service unit to follow up with her. She said all the other medical social services at hospital and governmental community services had given up on her, but this one didn’t. She showed up. She is not a fake, and her life was certainly not “just another life”.

It was worth it. That two hours or so of my time was worth it. Every life is worth it. Just like how mine was worth it to God, that He had sent people to help me in my times of desperation.

As we walked out, I bought her a simple takeaway dinner, and as we passed a fruit shop, she casually looked at a watermelon. “Want one?” I asked.

“Ver long never eat already. So long.”

And as she bit into the long sliver of juicy goodness, she exclaimed in child-like amazement, “It’s sweet! It’s sweet!” as if she had not expected it to be so, just as how she had not expected her life to be so, too. Her moments of child-likeness betrayed the old-ness and tragic maturity she displayed most of the time, reminding me that in spite of all her hardships, she was all but 20.

As we parted, she said for the first time, “Thanks ah.”

And though I was tired, it made me happy to know my arms were sore for good reason, from throwing starfish back into the sea. After all, I was once a starfish, too.