They are medium-sized glass boxes, filled heavy with chemicals, used to preserve sectioned human organs. To most people, they are a pain to look at. Disgusting, even, considering they were taken out from real human bodies.
Yellowish-brown, gray and sometimes even black, these organs can cause more than mild gastronomical discomfort. But put a few of these special glass boxes, pots, in a roomful of medical students, and you get the phenomena of moths sucked to a lamp-light.
For a few moments, these preserved organs bask in revelry and worship. In a classroom of knowledge-hungry medical students, they go from being beggars of attention to basking in the glory of kingship.
It was the laboratory technician who walked into the classroom, pushing a trolley stacked with boxes and boxes of them, these pots. Students were filing out for lunch, and he took the opportunity to deliver the pots to various classrooms, so we could use them for our next lesson after lunch.
As he took one pot out after another, the line of medical students on their way out for lunch, suddenly braked to a sudden halt like cars on a highway, and jam-crashed into one another.
Today's pots contained human lungs. There were all sorts- blackened ones tarred by charcoal, sickened ones infected with bacteria... Everybody reversed to marvel at the pickled wonders. What a headturner.
As if in frustration, the lab technician grumbled out loud, " All these lungs, so black. You think I care? Tell me smoking is bad, that this will happen to me... Some people smoke till they're ninety, a hundred even! I won't stop smoking! " He scowled and huffed, as if in self-denial. He stared at the glaring reality before him, and slammed the glass boxes of blackened, diseased lungs on the table, one by one.
He ranted on and on, and one student merely looked at him, stunned by his outburst. The rest, appalled, streamed out.
I noticed it. There was an atmosphere of judgement, disconnection. Hoity-toity medical students, us, all-knowing about disease and what's for our own good, and seemingly foolish and stubborn Mr Lab Tech caught up in his little outburst. There was a Great Divide between us.
I stayed to watch him.
For some reason, my heart hurts for smokers. I think it hurts for people suffering from any kind of depression, sadness- and smoking is the way many people cope with their stress, sadness, boredom, albeit with many regretful consequences.
Once, I tried it. Smoking, that is. I was in Indonesia, by myself on a short blue-sky getaway and I took a smoke from the boatman. Tattoo-man. I tried it merely for that reason, just to understand it, to bridge that gap between us Strangers. He had a profound sadness cupped in his life of being a boatman and I wanted to understand, wanted to listen to his Story. My first puff cemented our connection, and I managed to convince him it was bad for him, that he needed to quit it. I remember the Uncle I met at Cold Storage that day.
The lab technician continued to slam the heavy pots down.
I hesitated.
"Why do you still smoke?" I asked gently. I didn't want to offend him.
"Aiya," he said without looking up at me, " I don't care la, life is life. Some smokers smoke till they're ninety or a hundred- no need to quit! Die then die la!"
I watched him, didn't quite know what to say.
Then I spoke softly, " But... you know... even if we do live long, how about your quality of life? I mean... look at them... " I was very soft, careful not to anger him. I just wanted to know, just wanted to.... to try... to try and make a connection.
He crossed his arms and stared at the glass boxes. The lungs, charred like tar, glared back at him with candid honesty.
"Can't do without it la. Every day I move all these things- so heavy. I don't smoke I cannot do! Aiya, I don't smoke too much anyway... No no, not heavy smoker, maybe 2, 3 days, 1, 2 packs like that. Like that only!"
"Then it should be easier to quit ya? No?" I asked suggestively, trying not to sound judgemental. I was hesistant, not afraid- because I remembered, Sincere love never fails.
Finally he looked up at me. I smiled.
There was an awkward pause.
Then, his frown broke into a wide, wide smile. "Thank you so much. " He looked at me and smiled with his eyes. "Thank you so much," he said again. He laughed.
All it took was a small decision to change his countenance completely. Mr Scowling Lab Tech to friendly, smiling, laughing man. I asked for his name.
"People don't remember! Medical students don't remember... My name is Rajendran. But too long, nobody remembers. So just call me Rajen."
I thought about the talk on smoking cessation we had a few days ago, about how so many of us medical students skipped it, skipped it because we had "more important" things to do. And I thought to myself- what a great difference it had made in deepening my love and understanding for these people, smokers, and helped me to understand their psyche, understand what perspective I had to come from to reach out to them, to bridge the Great Divide.
And then it came to me. Deep inside, we all want to be great. We all want to be special, and extra-ordinary, and noble, even. But it's all about being faithful in the small things, in choosing not to compromise. I wasn't special. It wasn't anything about me intrinsically that bridged that Divide. It was the decision made to talk to Tattoo-man, to that smoking Uncle, the decision made to stay for the talk, the decision to perhaps see how there may be the possibility that our hearts could be further enlarged, enlarged further still, because our hearts are so small.
So small.
So many people with needs, from different backgrounds, with different Stories. How many of them do we actually empathise with? So many patients go to doctors and never get much better-never get any better not because they were given the wrong treatment, but because there was no connection made between two people, no understanding and hence, no adherence to a suggestion to make a change in lifestyle.
So I learnt today, that perhaps, just perhaps, it isn't about being a Dean's lister or about being a leader with a Post and Status. Well, to some extent, it is. But more, it's about making a stand to make our Little deicisons in life, it's about being faithful to the love God has given us, and has called us to give to others.
In our faithfulness to the small decisions we make, we shape the kind of experiences and Encounters we have with people, and the kind of persons we eventually become.
It is the faithfulness in the small things.
He left before I could say, "You're welcome. Rajendren."
"Be faithful in the small things, because it is in them that your strength lies."
-Mother Teresa
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