Reaching out to Touch Someone: Part II

I had a busy and exciting week this past week. And I am so filled with love and joy that I can’t even express my gratitude with the right words.

Last Saturday evening, two very close friends flew down from Vancouver, Canada to see me. BC was my best friend from secondary school in Hong Kong. We spent three out of five years in the same classroom. One year the teacher let the kids pick their own seats. BC and I naturally sat at the farthest corner from the teacher’s desk. We spent the whole year talking quietly to each other in lieu of listening to what the lectures were about.

AC is a good friend of BC’s. I first met AC a few years ago on a tour to China. Because of the link through BC, AC and I became very close friends too. They were going to stay in the San Francisco Bay Area for a full week. Since my driver’s license was revoked by the government due to my bad health, they had to rent a car and drive me around every day to places. And we had a ball! We went to the piers in San Francisco, a park in Fremont, the beautiful Stanford University campus and the Monterey Bay like a bunch of curious tourists. AC has a cousin living in San Jose. The cousin and her husband, both in their 80’s, seemed to know every restaurant within 50 miles of their home. They ranged from those with up-scale ambiance and others that were fancy holes in the wall. They too joined us on some of our day trips and we had the greatest meals in their favorite restaurants. Although I had met the cousins before, I did not expect the warm friendship from them. They treated me like family.

Touch Someone II_1In addition to the chocolate, a book and other goodies they came with, my Canuck friends also gave two totally unexpected surprises. One, they brought another book and a substantial cash gift from another classmate, KN, who also resides in Vancouver, and who wanted us to have a few good dinners at his expense. Two, an acquaintance LT whom I casually met a few years back in Vancouver heard about my illness. She asked BC to bring me a get-well card and some rosary beads. I was baptized as a teenager and I recognized the meaning and significance of such a gift!

That was not the end of my bustling week. Another friend CY and his beautiful wife JY were taking a vacation in Hawaii. No sooner when they got off the plane than they took my guests and me to lunch the next day.

Last week I wrote about reaching out to friends without delay – only to find myself on the receiving end of such benevolence immediately afterward. This was just too coincidental and surreal. Or was it too real in a sense that it is only inexplicable by my limited but arrogant intelligence?

Hail, My Friends

Hail, My FriendsTouch Someone II_2

*** The End ***

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