Dear friends,
I was in a meeting when I received a text from someone familiar. A woman we’ve known for a while. Let’s call her Felicity and she asked if I was at the office. When I answered “yes,” she replied that she was on her way, and I should wait for her. Felicity is a mother of 3 adult children who were once in an after-school care programme we ran for children. The children left the programme when they were institutionalised after it was discovered that they were being abused by Felicity’s partner.
Back then, Felicity was in the midst of a divorce from her children’s father and the situation with the children’s care did not exactly facilitate joyful exchanges within the family. Though separated from us, the children kept in touch through phone calls and the occasional visit, and for that we give thanks to an enlightened Head of Home who understood that his facility should not replace family and community ties.
Over the past 20 years, my colleagues and I would hear from different members of the family. The oldest child had a close relationship with an ex-colleague who is living overseas and every now and then, this colleague would let me know of the family’s progress or alert me to a challenge they were experiencing. I remember guiding them to repay a considerable debt they had incurred because in their haste to move homes after the divorce was finalised, they discarded a sofa that they had obtained on hire-purchase. The sofa being out of sight, was out of mind for Felicity but it was certainly not so for the retailer and its debt collectors.
We were aware of a few other challenges that the family encountered but we did not simply touch base over problems but on festive occasions too where my colleagues and I were showered with their modest but very warm hospitality. Last year, I learned that the children’s father was seriously ill and following his hospitalisation, he could not care for himself less return to work. On New Year’s Eve, I visited him at Felicity’s flat as the family had put aside their differences to care for him. In May this year, I attended his wake.
Felicity excitedly passed me a parcel when we met. She shared that she was in mourning for her ex-husband and there would be no festive celebrations for her this year. However, there was no harm making someone else happy. I was deeply touched and when I took the gift out of the box and placed it on the table, she slipped in a $2 note explaining that it was for luck and prosperity. “I have just learnt how to shop online, and I got you this because I will not be inviting you to a festive celebration for a while,” she declared.
As community workers, we are a commitment to being an encouraging presence for the sake of a kind, fair and cooperative society where people live satisfying and meaningful lives. This Christmas I wish you the gift of being a presence for peace, joy, and goodwill among all of us.
