I Swear You Will Be Fine

Dear Josh,

In TCF, there was a parent who had started a foundation promoting “Random Acts of Kindness”. On the anniversary of her child’s passing, she requested for all of us to do some random act of kindness. In the examples she gave, some were as simple as holding the door open for someone, or paying for someone’s groceries. For some reason, it was something that I keep remembering. I know many of us do these acts regularly, and I’m reminded of how you would frequently perform these random acts of kindness. But it still struck a chord with me.

I wrote the other day about my primary school reunion. There was another touching moment to this. You may not remember me speaking about my school principal. She was literally revolutionary. I was also her star pupil. Through common friends, she heard of your passing. But we had not met each other in decades. One of the reasons I was nervous about going to this event was meeting her.

Our table was right next to the principals, both past and current. So as I took my seat, I spotted her immediately. She had her back to me though. So she had not seen me.

In a weird sequence of events, when one of my friends tried to get a picture with the guest of honour, it somehow turned into getting a picture with her. As we all gathered around her, she spotted me. I introduced myself (not sure if she would have recognised me after all these years). We hugged each other and she kept saying, “my Cheryl, my Cheryl”.

As we arranged ourselves to take the picture, a few of us were asked to sit and the rest to stand. She was sitting in the middle, and my friends asked me to sit on her left. Seconds before we had to pose for the camera, she reached under the table and grabbed my hand, gripping my fingers ever so tightly. She did not let go for the next 10 minutes, intermittently and frequently whispering to me, “how are you doing”. It took every little bit of strength not to start crying.

Did you know Josh, that there would be people as distant as my primary school principal, showing me acts of kindness because you passed? I very much doubt it. I often think, for every person who has failed to support us during these worst times, there are at least 5 who have supported us. I now think it’s more than 10. Again, blessings amongst the tragedies. Are you creating all this? Maybe.

Anyway, I am also making more of an effort to do these random acts of kindness. I’m sure you will be happy about this too.

Love Mum.