When I heard his voice, my jaw almost dropped.
It just seemed surreal, that even after moving thousands of miles away to an opposite time zone and we were certain to lose touch, that somehow, a blog reader and stranger-turned-friend should contact me, because “I’m with Grandpa Zhou now and I showed him photos of your baby girl. He says she is very cute. Do you want to talk to him now? I’ll call you.”
I was watching our baby, barely a month old at the time, when she fell to sleep.
“Yes of course!”
As you might know, Grandpa Zhou is the elderly busker who sits by the train station near where I used to live, earning a living through playing the harmonica. Being crippled on one leg, he used to be angry, bitter and caustic to anyone who crossed his path. He hated God for his life, and never believed in the concept of faith, dismissing it as a crutch for the emotionally weak.
After years of befriending him, however, love changed him.
I remember him being the first to run (yes, run with his disability) down the church aisle when he said yes to God, a sight which I never thought I would see and which moved me to tears; I remember him playing a crucial part in my accepting Cliff as God’s plan for my life, when I finally saw Cliff for who he was as he sat down to talk to Grandpa Zhou in such a personal, easy way, without awkwardness or disdain for how he looked or smelled at the time; I remember him performing for our wedding reception, and him asking to be baptized in our home, which we arranged for him.
At every crucial life stage, he journeyed with us as much as we did with him.
And now, thousands of miles away, I had the joy of hearing his voice because a passer-by and blog reader knew what it would mean to me.
”?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????” ( She’s so cute, your daughter. Your friend here showed me her photos through your blog. When do you go for further studies in America? It’s a messy place there now, I’ll be praying for your family. Pray for me too- when you return, I might not be alive anymore.”)
Baby, just so you know, Grandpa Zhou is just one of the many people we hope you will come to know and love in your lifetime. If it weren’t for the way God weaved our lives together, Mama might never have loved Papa the way she did. And maybe, just maybe, there could be no you.
You see, there’s no such thing as “people like them” or “people like us,” like how the world might say or see it, because when you start seeing “them” the way God does, then we are all the same in some way, and we give God the opportunity to weave our lives together in beautiful ways, across strata, circumstances and continents, even.
So I pray, Sweetheart, that you’ll continue to grow in beauty and grace, that you’ll live out the fullness of your name, to lead a life of faith, grace and sincerity, all the days of your life.
“???????????????????????????” We’ll be praying for you, Grandpa Zhou. We pray you’ll stay in good health. See you in two years.”
*If you see Grandpa Zhou by the train station at Kembangan or Yishun MRT, please stop by to say hello. Tell him you read about him, ask him how his health is keeping up, and if you feel led to, ask if he needs some help with his medical appointments- he does not beg for money. Better still, sit down with him on the dirty stair steps and enjoy a conversation with him or buy him a meal. His favorite food is Chinese rice takeout with soft veggies, tofu, and ??(custard eggs).
