Hidden Angels.

" Do you have a minute?"

"Sure, of course I do. What's up dear?" I replied.

You asked me if I was going to any poor country this December. I said yes, I was, I would be, what was the matter? Our cohort of medical students is so huge, 250 of us, and we never hang out in the same communities, so I hardly ever get to talk to you. You're more of a friend's friend, I would say.

You opened my palm and put two hundred dollars in them.

" This is for you, Wai Jia. I want to give it to you. Use it in whatever way you want to help the poor, I don't care how you use it... Contribute to building a school, sponsoring a child's education, even buying sweets for a begging streetkid while you're on one of your trips... whatever. It's for you, use it however you like, as long as it helps someone who really needs it. Yea, I want you to have it. "

Silence.

I thought I saw God for a moment when you smiled back. I barely even know you, so I hugged you. That was all.

This undeserved trust.

As I walked out of class back home, dazed by what had just happened, I met an ex-classmate from secondary school. I remember her giving me fifty dollars for a copy of Kitesong. "For the kids in Nepal, " she said.

"Hey Wai Jia!" she called out to me from afar before scuttling over. "Here. I know it's not much, but I was just talking to a friend about your book and my classmate just wanted to give you seven dollars. It really isn't much, but take it, will you? Oh I don't have change... Here, take eight dollars... I'm rushing for class right now, see you around! Bye!"

Last week, I posted a note on the online medical groups, requesting for second-hand children clothes for the girls in the orphanage in Nepal. No news for days, then suddenly more than 40 kilos worth of clothes poured in. More to come.

S, you drove specially from home to deliver me a bag stuffed so huge and so full of clothes I couldn't reach its end as I hugged it upstairs to my home.

This morning, D called me aside. " I read your blog over the weekend, Wai Jia. I just wanted to say, keep fighting. Keep fighting, because even if you don't win, it doesn't mean you can't inspire change."

Today I was frustrated during the last lecture because I couldn't understand large of bits it and mainly, I was so distracted by some things on my mind that I wasn't even jotting notes properly. I sighed, and K, you saw my frustration, said, "Here, take my notes. I'll go make a copy with you right now before our next lesson and hey, feel free to call me tonight if you can't read my handwriting." You were even more stressed out than me, I could tell, and I knew you would be busybusybusy this whole week and every minute was important to you because you were organising a concert for our faculty this weekend, you were performing, and you had a million other things to do too. You were pretty stressed yourself, you didn't have to offer, didnt have to take the trouble to photocopy it with me, didn't have to so meticulously go through every single point when I asked you for clarification. I thought if someone like me had sat down right next to me during lectures, what an irritant I would think that person would be- the kind of irritant you want to cough up in sputum but can't. Adrenergic Receptor Pharmacology made special because of you.

Cheesy but true.

People always think they have to dream, be at the brink of death or hallucinate before they see angels, white angels with incandescent haloes gleaming with purity and goodness. But look around... they're all around.

Just, hidden.