I Need You.

A gentle tug on my hand. “Jiejie (big sister) Wai Jia, can you come to toilet with me? The tap, it’s too hard- I can’t press it.”

I hold her hand and take her back to the washroom, where she tiptoes and reaches her cupped hands to the running water, relieved. “Yay, I love going to zoo with church… today will be so much fun!” She squeals with excitement.

And what the children don’t know is how excited I really am, too. Excited to take them to the zoo as part of a holiday programme organised by the children’s ministry at my church; excited to know that I’ve been “promoted” to being their teacher instead of a helper at sunday school; excited just to be with them and listen to them giggle, fight, ask questions and even say the wisest things ever so once in a while, just out of the blue- “Jiejie Wai Jia, you know ah, I don’t like to be too pretty or too thin, later get very proud or get blown away by the wind.”

“You’re absolutely right, darling. One will get blown away by the wind.” And you tuck into the warm porridge at lunch after our zoo outing like it’s the best thing in the world. I have to keep reminding myself you’re seven.

What you don’t know is how much I enjoy spending time with you all. How much I love the way you reach out for my hand and hold it the way I always like it to be held, firmly and trustingly, no matter if our hands get a little sticky; how much I love the way you lean into me as if I were a sofa; how much I love the way you ask if I could go with you to the washroom or if I could uncap your bottle or if there are dragons in hell. I love the way you play with my hair and hug my thigh and give me a kiss because you’re having such a good time. I am, too. I just wish you knew how much.

I love the way you are so dangerously vulnerable and needy and trust me with that.

Did you know, it’s been almost ten years since I last visited the zoo. Back then, my parents took me to the night safari every friday after their busy week at work. We would drive from one end of the island to the other, take the tram ride to see the night animals while I fell asleep half-way, then drive all the way back home. So I was just as intrigued and fascinated as you when we admired the giraffes, zebras and polar bears. The weather was beautifully cool and each of you were lovely in your sunhats and sports shoes and little bagpacks. We were off to the water-park at Rainforest Kidzworld and you couldn’t wait.

You were running and running and running, round and round, up and down and asking me to join you so you could get me wet. “Ahhhh, watch out!” you squealed, as I ducked away from a water-contraption which threatened to drench me suddenly.

And then I thought what the heck and went into the water for a bit as well. You always know the bestest ways to have fun, don’t you?

Then one of you came home with me because we’d been planning for THIS for months. A long time ago you told me how much you loved gingerbread men and how you wished you could make them. “Want to come to my house to bake someday in the holidays?” I asked innocently, and who knew the persistence of a little child who would remind me week after week after week- “Can we bake gingerbread men, Jiejie Wai Jia?”

And it was such a busy week that I couldn’t get the gingerbread-man cookie cutter for you so I apologised profusely for having only animal-shaped cookie cutters. But you were ecstatic and didn’t care what shape it was as long as you could help make the cookies.

“Okay, read the ingredients to me darling.”

“One four teaspoon baking powder.”

“Oh, you mean one-quarter, dear.”

“One quarter?”

And so we had math lesson too.

To tell you the truth, I was worried before. I was worried that with medical school and all my other commitments that I wouldn’t be able to cope with spending time with you all at sunday school. But I don’t know how to tell you how much joy and freedom you give to me, that it’s more of a joy than a commitment, more of a highlight than a burden of my week. Just being with you and listening to you, answering your questions, and laughing, laughing, laughing with you brings me so much joy. You make me feel so comfortable and at ease and unpretentious and lovely and happy and free all at once, because I am most happy when I am allowed to be a kid again, which I only am around kids themselves, or people whom I’m most comfortable with- the girlish giggle never comes out otherwise.

Did you know how happy I felt when they told me I was finally appointed to teach my very own class of seven and eight year-olds? Today was my first time teaching you all about loving our neighbours. We talked about how like looking through a kaleidoscope, God looks at us through a different perspective. We learnt about loving the unlovely through object lessons using gummie bears and M&Ms- that the particular flavour of gummie bear which nobody chose was like the lonely friend we had in our classes, that though each of us look different on the outside just like multi-coloured M&Ms, we were all of equal worth inside, as proven by our taste-testing experiment today where we proclaimed that all M&Ms irrespective of colour tasted the same. I wondered if you all would understand, if you would be distracted and uninterested. But you were attentive and inquisitive and we had great fun eating candies after our lesson. You make my sundays so very very bright.

And that crazy spoilt brat inside of me dissolves into nothingness every time you need me, need a tissue or a squeeze or a prayer or simply my presence. How my heart melts when you ask me why I will not be at sunday school next week. “Because I have something on darling, I see you week after next, okay?”

“Okay.”

And maybe the best part was the text message from your mommy: “She had such a good time today. Couldn’t stop talking about it.” and your random phonecall to my mobile phone this afternoon, “Jiejie Wai Jia, my cousin wants to eat gingerbread men now also… Are you free… er…. now?”

“Next time when I am free, we can do it again, okay?”

Because as much as you need me to go to the washroom and uncap your bottle and explain this and that to you and listen and love and hug you, I realise that…

… I need you, too.

“The soul is healed by being with children.”

– Fyodor Dostoyevsky