Helping kids deal with trauma.

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Helping kids deal with traumatic events. That’s the news in ST Life this morning. And yes, it’s about RVHS incident: a life taken, another broken, and a nation grieves together. 

Now, it’s time to console and bravely live on. I guess that is why the word ”encourage” is made up of “en” which means “within, in” and what we are familiar with “courage”. Together, it yields en-courage.

It is one person putting another within the strength and hope of courage, thereby confronting trials together, with a warm hand to hold as we move forward. 

We all need that sometimes. The young and the old, the living and the dying. For who can fully understand why things happen the way they did? Why the innocent bears the pain? Why a marriage fails? Why tomorrow seems so bleak? Why we can’t let go of the past? And why is God silent? Or, is anyone out there? 

We strengthen the heart by encouraging it. We heal the brokenness with the courage that hope brings. We live a day by faith, and walk in step with it. Ultimately hope is an invisible force lifting every step from the ankle up, giving us just enough to take the next step and the next. 

Moving forward for many takes many pauses. Within each pause is the call for encouragement, a cry for a warm hand to hold. Within each pause is a call for understanding, a call to share our brokenness. And we need to know that we are not alone, that someone has been there and is ready to stand in the gap. 

In the papers yesterday, Janice Tay wrote an article entitled “Wishes after a storm”. Janice is a manager at Shimaya Stays, a machiya accommodation venture in Kyoto.

Janice wrote about a yearly festival in Japan. “Every year, to celebrate the summer festival of Tanabata, Kodai-ji, a temple in Kyoto, invites nursery and kindergarten children to make a wish on tanzaku. The bright strips of paper, along with other decorations, are then tied to bamboo set out for everyone to enjoy.”

“But this year, a storm the night before the event strips the papers away. By late afternoon of the next day, a temple worker is still trying to restore the wishes to the bamboo.”

The children are persistent when it comes to hanging their wishes on tanzaku. The storm may blow away the strips of wishes or hope, but they would return the next day to look for them. The kids, together with their parents, will enquire with the temple worker about their tanzaku. 

““A family unable to find the right tanzaku asks the worker for help. He dashes back into the temple, returning some time later with a handful of paper. "This is all that's left inside, I'm afraid," he says.””

“He still has stacks of decorations to string up but he makes the time to go through the strips one by one with the family. And the missing tanzaku is found. The wish is duly read out: "I want to be a giant koppa."”

Koppa? Well, according to Janice, it is supposed to spell “Kappa” and the five-year-old boy’s wishes was to be a demon with webbed hands. But that’s ok, a wish is a wish. 

Janice also observed that “a little girl cannot find her wish. She squats next to a stalk of bamboo, crestfallen.”

“The vendor tries to cheer her up, telling her about the great winds in the night. She keeps the stream of conversation going, her busy hands never stopping as she makes sure the child doesn't feel alone.”

We adults do the same thing too. We harbour many wishes, hopes. We tie the tanzaku in our hearts. Yet, not all of them are alike though. Some of us wish our own version of “koppa”, that is, wishes that carry darker undertones. But that is how we cope, the best way we know how.

And yes, we do lose sight of them too when the storms in our life come. The wind blowing them away. Some of us let them go, because we don’t see much hope in those wishes. They are just wishes. Vain hope?

Maybe we need it more than ever now. Hope is like living waters to our soul. We need the refreshing stream to uplift spirit. And even going through hard times, we should never stop hoping. Like the kids’ enthusiasm in seeking for theirs, we should allow their enthusiasm to encourage our hearts. They never gave up looking for hope, neither should we. 

As we encourage our children, their innocence encourages us too. Their simple faith lifts ours up. We too need to know we are not alone. And at times, we hold their hand to move forward with courage, and they too hold our hand to move us forward with them. One step at a time, and together, never losing sight of hope.