Thirsty

Uncle C* lives downstairs, at a unit near a gate which I come home through. We’ve smiled at each other a few times when I pass him by as he does his gardening at his balcony, exchanged polite conversation but more nothing personal.

I was on my way back from hospital one day when he stopped me, “You’re a medical student right? I just wanted to tell you- my family went for a holiday in Tokyo Disneyland two weeks ago, and my wife died there. Yeah, I’m okay, I just wanted to tell you, that’s all.”

I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry,” I said. That night, I wept for him.

For several months I never saw him again. My busy hospital schedule saw me leaving home at daybreak, and I hardly ever saw him watering his plants anymore. His garden withered, but his dry, fragile plants in their pots still remain.

I had a gathering at my place one night, for some fellowship between doctors and friends, and many sandwiches, muffins, cakes and curry puffs were left over. Something stirred within me to bless his family and I packed a tray full of goodies and some uplifting reading material to deliver to him. As I left my home, holding the precariously heavy tray, I started to cry. Why do I care? He will think I’m crazy, tell me not to feel sorry for him or something. But an inexplicable emotion welled up within me, and I was willing to take the risk, because of how the love of God gripped my heart and captured me.

This time I cried, not because I felt sorry for Uncle C, but because in reaching out to him, I felt God reach out to me, too.

Uncle C wasn’t home, so I left my number with his son.

“Just tell him it’s from the medical student who lives upstairs.”

Though it had been months since we met again, I was sure he remembered me. Two days later, I was walking up the stairs at the train station when I realized that I had missed a call on my phone. Checking who it was from, I realized I hadn’t recognized the number. I reached the train platform, lifted my head up- only to find Uncle C standing right there in front of me! We both jumped, and he said, “I just tried calling you. Just wanted to thank you so much for the food. It was yummy. Ha, it’s my first time taking the train to visit a gym today.”

I hadn’t seen him for ages, understand that- and I looked around to check for a cameraman because I thought coincidences like these happen only in drama serials.

I forgot, God’s script always surprises me.

We find ourselves travelling to the same destination, and my mind searches his face and conversation for lonliness, pain and sorrow- but I find none. I ask him how he’s doing, how his children are coping, and he smiles to invite me over for dinner. Just want to thank you, he says, The banana cake you baked was wonderful. I am uncomfortable with this, because having dinner with elderly men who’ve lost their wives isn’t on my list of Things I Do When I’m Free.

But something compels me to agree, and I listen to his Story intently about his wife’s life, and death.

“She just collapsed in Disneyland, you know. We knew she wasn’t feeling too well, but nothing prepared us for the suddenness of which things happened. We called the ambulance, but they didn’t come- in Tokyo, they only dispatch ambulances when they’ve a free bed at a hospital. So they took forever to come, and then, her organs failed and she bled to death,” he said, with only a tinge of sadness.

“She was a chronic drinker for more than ten years. I used to be like a detective, searching out bottles of alcohol she hid around the house. I used to make her all sorts of juices to help her recover…”

“Did she receive counseling?” I asked.

“She’s been through the full works. Alcoholics Anonymous, hospitals, psychiatrists, mental institutes… She just never could put herself together. She always talked about me getting re-married after she died. Somehow, she knew she was dying, killing herself. She couldn’t stop drinking.”


She drank because she was thirsty. But the more she drank, the thirstier she became. It was like a curse of some sort.

It reminded me of God’s Banquet Table of Life- that we all come to it, and are blessed because though we hunger and thirst, we are quickly satisfied. And it is not a nuisance to be hungry and thirsty afterwards again, for hunger and thirst is a blessing, too. Once a friend said at a birthday party, “Oh, the food is so lovely that I’m actually sad I’m full!”

It is part of God’s grace, to hunger and thirst, and to be filled. It is also His grace, that we hunger and thirst again, only to find ourselves filled once more. For every experience teaches us something new, and we are nourished by different foods, experiences and trials.

We will do everything we can to fill the holes within us. But we forget, that some holes, we just can’t fill ourselves.

She drank, she kept drinking. But her hole only grew bigger, deeper, darker.

People tried to help her. But nothing worked. Nothing.

And then she died. Bled to death on a family blue-sky getaway to Tokyo Disneyland- right there, in the middle of fun, amusement and laughter. In a place people go to to find a transient high, a moment’s thrill, a passing adventure.

When we look to things and people to satisfy our eternal longings and desires, why do we not realize that we will never be fulfilled.

“ She just couldn’t stop drinking. She tried everything. I tried, too. But nothing worked. She just kept drinking-it’s been ten years.”

I feel like Ive suddenly been forced to grow up. I read of alcoholism, pre-marital sex, suicides in the papers, and find more and more people I know being a part of these tragic stories-acquaintances, and friends, too. I never quite get over the shock. Never quite get over the disappointment. We are thirsting, and running to the wrong wells to satisfy our thirst.

Some days, especially on weekends, I find myself thirsting for the wrong things too. For attention, for love, for companionship, work or merely something to occupy my senses with, forgetting that I can be completely secure in God’s love. On Saturdays, I sometimes find myself itching to return to the hospital, as I thirst for the stability of routine, for the company of friends, for the treasure of knowledge from patients. My throat becomes parched with desperation and I scramble to have my thirst relieved.

They say that thirst is worse than hunger. For one cannot go without water for long.

Are you thirsty, too?

In the heat of the desert, I think I see an oasis in the distance. I think it’s a mirage but as I go closer, I see a Banquet Table, with Him right there waiting for me.

At the end of an overwhelming day, after running mindlessly to all the wrong wells, I find myself all at once, relieved, to find myself taking a drink from Him. He hands me a cup, and I am giddy with relief. It has been a hot season of summer, but all I need is a tiny sip, and I am, all at once, completely satisfied.

I come to His table, and find myself at once in that glorious moment, thirsting no more.