Those eyes.

Those eyes!

I was walking down the flight of steps at a train station in town when I caught sight of her eyes. Twinkling and full of light, they emanated warmth and an incandescent glow. I only saw those eyes once, and never forgot them.

“Esther!” I cried out. And she was surprised I even remembered her name.

How could I forget. I met her on a train carriage once and was watching her because her eyes caught my attention- those beautiful pools of light, shining and pulsing in the sunshine. Sitting on a wheelchair with her legs eaten by polio and selling tissue with a beautifully genuine smile on her face, her body radiated more energy than the hustling crowd around her.

“It’s you, Esther. You gave me a balloon once.”

“Oh really? Here’s another,” she smiled, and handed me a green balloon which had been crafted to become a green apple. She had even used real leaves as the apple’s stalk.

She smiled, oh how she smiled. She told me what a wonderful day she had had. I wanted to hear more. So I knelt down to listen. She had more to say, more of love to share with me and a Story to share… “Come, sit down,” she said. So I sat down at the foot of her wheelchair and listened earnestly.

There is something about the Poor which brings the treasure of life so close.

“My face is burning as I talk to you,” she said, ” I feel God just by me.” And I believed her, because I did too. My eyes were burning as I looked at hers.

Those eyes!

So we talked as the busy crowd bustled past us. Quizzical looks were passed upon a strange girl kneeling by a wheelchair.

Esther had polio. Esther sits on a wheelchair becaue she cannot really walk on her calipers. Esther sells tissue paper for a living. Esther lives alone in a tiny flat. Esther is a divorcee with two children stricken with mental illnesses living apart from her runaway husband…

But…

…Esther is happy. Esther can make little balloon figurines! she tells me excitedly. And Esther is loved very much. Poor and robbed and scandalised but rich and generous and honoured. “Because God loves me- He holds all my problems in the palm of his hand.” And that is enough for her, every day.

“Ah,” she said, “ timing, timing. Not your timing yet. You want to do missions, but it’s not your timing yet. But at the right time, after your studies, after your training, God will call. Be patient, He will surely call. God loves you so much. Right now, just do a lot of good, bless others, pray often, and read what He wants you to read.” She pointed to Mother Teresa’s biography which I held in my hand. ” And read the Bible also.”

There is something about the Poor the rich will never understand- the riches that they have, we shall never come to possess. God keeps them close, and their eyes reflect a piece of heaven. There were tears in my eyes as I listened to her talk, just as how tears often stream down my cheeks when Grandpa Zhou tells me of how happy, how incredibly free and happy he feels when he sings to God, when he gives me handwritten lyrics on a crumpled sheet and breaks out exuberantly into a Hokkien opera tune. “Lai! Wo chang gei ni ting! (Come I’ll sing for you!)” this frail waif of a man would exclaim heartily.

I remember that day I was sitting on the bus with Grandpa Zhou. We were on our way to dinner. I don’t know why I couldn’t stop the tears running down my cheeks. It happens so often with him and he never notices. He only looks ahead with his twinkling eyes blinking hard, only sings for me, only says ever so often, “Why do you associate with someone like me? Do you parents know?”

Unlike Esther, did he not know God was close by? That every time we sat at the train steps, He was there too? The Poor is God is his distressing disguise.

The Poor are God in his humility.
The Poor see what we cannot see.
And unless we stop or even try,
His lovely eyes shall pass us by.

Oh, those eyes.