A New Turn at the End of the Road

It was November 2004, at the brink of Christmas season. Christmas decorations began illuminating the city. Choirs practiced in churches, getting ready for the big event at the end of the year. I knew that very moment that I should be there, rehearsing with church-mates, playing music.

But I wasn’t.

I was far from anything Christmas-like.

It was noon.

I was sitting in the chemist waiting room, waiting for my name to be called. My Mom was just hospitalized for her third CVA (stroke). And I was simply there to buy her medicine. The money I got in the wallet was half the price I had to pay. I planned on buying half the prescription. But I knew that the following day the medicine I bought that day would run out, and at the same time the next day I would have to return and queue at the same waiting room.

Leaning my head against the wall, I felt a very heavy burden suffocating me from within, like tons of steel pressuring.

And I felt cold. Just like any person on earth undergoing depression, this icy cold feeling inside me was so overwhelming.

I saw an old woman being called for her husband’s medicine bill. Her sad countenance and grey hairs showed greater distress than mine. I heard the cashier mumbled some few millions into her face.

I felt colder.

Not so long afterward, I heard a man quarreling with the front officers. His father died the previous night and he wanted to take the corpse home for burial. But the hospital wouldn’t let him. They had determined to keep the body until the family had paid the entire medication expenses in full.

It was over a hundred million…!

My head was swimming.

I sat down by the hospital garden, staring blankly at the trees and flowers and statue in the midst of it. It was as if that very hospital were the centre of all sufferings in the world. So many people in agony, so few of those outside realized or care about it.

I lifted up my head and stared at the sky. I knew God was there. I knew He would hear what I had to say.

So I told Him, “God, if one day You will bless me abundantly, I promise I won’t close my eyes toward the suffering of others.”

I sighed, and stood up. Gently I walked back to my Mom’s ward.

Today, she’s been gone for a year – after so much pain and suffering.

Now her soul is at rest – at last.

I live on, bearing in mind the word I said to my Maker, intending to keep it no matter what. I made a new turn at the end of that year, and every moment of my life since that hour is marked with the same resolution.

I am now taking the road less traveled, and oh…! How it makes all the difference in the world!