I wonder, at 89, what will I be doing?
Well, for Madam Khaw Seow Wah, she is connecting people, rebuilding ties once lost and reuniting families.
In the papers, the headlines read: “At 89, she helps recovering drug addicts reconnect with families” (journalist Calvin Yang).
Mdm Khaw has been doing this for the last 30 years. She is a long-time volunteer with Christian halfway house Breakthrough Missions. And she “has been knocking on the doors of the families of recovering drug addicts.”
She said: “Many of these families were let down by (the addicts) drug abusing ways and did not want to have anything to do with them. But I would share with the families how (the addict) had changed for the better. If they didn’t believe, they could visit them and see.”
Mdm Khaw recounted that at one point, “she stood outside a former drug abuser’s home for an hour because the family, disappointed with his actions, refused to let her in.”
This was how she did her work. Patiently waiting at a family’s door, waiting for them to respond, building trust along the way and allowing the hardened hearts to soften so as to invite their son back into the family.
Mind you, it’s no easy feat for the last 30 years for Mdm Khaw. “Such visits can stretch to three hours or more each. She has lost her way at times and tripped and fallen on a couple of occasions en route to seeing the families.”
Pastor Simon Neo, 66, a former drug addict and founder of Breakthrough Mission, said: “She doesn’t get tired and sometimes she would even visit them without telling us. She reassures the families, so that they are ready when their sons come home.”
Mdm Khaw has five children and six grandchildren. Most of her children are residing overseas. She lived in her Telok Blangah flat. But she has to cut down on visits because she fell last month. But that didn’t stop this kindness dynamo from giving even at 89.
For goodness and kindness once sown doesn’t return empty. This is how the cycle of giving and love is reaped.
Mdm Khaw is now staying at the halfway house, “which has set aside a room for her so that she can be looked after by the residents and staff.”
She “spends her days helping out at Breakthrough Missions, such as teaching its residents how to write Chinese characters. She also keeps in contact with those who have left the halfway house, and helps find jobs for those who are unemployed.”
She said: “I care about them and I want to see that they are doing well.”
Aaron Xie, 35, who was once a drug addict and is now working in the halfway house, said: “Many people wouldn’t even bother to care about drug addicts. For a stranger like her to show such love is rare. She is like a mother to us. Even though she doesn’t get anything in return, she never gives up on us.”
Lesson? I teared a little when I read that - “she never gives up on us.”
Being a devout Christian, Mdm Khaw said that God has given her this burden “to persuade families to accept the recovering drug addict.” She added that “deep down, these families want to know how their sons are coping, and if they will ever change.”
“I want to show God’s love for others, especially those who need a second chance. I see these brothers grow, I see them change. If we don’t give them a chance, we won’t know whether they will mend their ways.”
Alas, blessed indeed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted, their hearts will be warmed, their souls lifted and their spirit renewed.
There are actually two places in this world you will find a certain form of happiness: first, a place where we celebrate worldly successes, toasting and feasting, and second, a place where we help to heal and mend broken hearts, encouraging and reconnecting.
While the first form of happiness is important, giving credit where credit is due, I feel that enduring happiness is found in the second.
For at the pinnacle of success, there is always a risk that you may fall. But at the valley of your hurts and regrets, your only way out is up.
That is why when you climb to the top of the mountain, and look down, you will notice the trees stop short at certain level. They do not grow beyond that level. For only in the valley below can they grow. At some level, the air thins, and they do not grow beyond that point.
It is the same with us, in our fight and struggle for acceptance, love and hope. In our own valley, we pull ourselves together and grow. We take nothing for granted and treasure every moment given to us. We come to our senses and return home with a contrite and determined heart to change.
Mdm Khaw’s devotion reminded me of the parable of the Prodigal Son. For there is no deeper joy or no transformation so deep as a family united (with loved ones) to start all over.
We can’t do it alone, especially when we know how much grief and pain we have brought unto our family, our loved ones. We need someone to believe in us again, someone to trust and love us one more time.
The world may give up on us, but what is almost irrecoverable for us is when even our loved ones give up on us. There is no wound so deep and painful as having loved ones telling us we will never change.
Mdm Khaw’s own words that “I want to show God’s love for others, especially those who need a second chance. I see these brothers grow, I want to see them change” is the trusting ropes we need at the point of our valley to help us to see the light, to sense hope, and to feel love again - even from someone we don’t know.
When someone believes in us, the way Mdm Khaw believed in the drug addict, we are like trees in the valley whose roots dig in, spread out, forming a stable base of strength and support, so that our branches can push up to a place of restoration, grow and resilience.
So when Aaron said “(Mdm Khaw) is like a mother to us. Even though she doesn’t get anything in return, she never gives up on us”, that kind of love, unceasing love, is rare because it does not look to one’s past, one’s mistakes and failures and disappointments, it however looks forward, not in the valley of things, but skyward, to the hope of all things.
Mdm Khaw’s devotion may be simple, unsophisticated, but its empowerment is unprecedented, unfailing.
I am forever touched by her 30 years of selfless devotion because she became a mother to the motherless (at least for a wounded season), and she restored them to their families (for all seasons).
The power in that is in the healing on both sides, that is, the sons and their mothers and fathers. The power in that is in the restoration and reconciliation of broken hearts and lost souls. And the power in that is in the walking of a new journey with loved ones into a transformed future and never stranded in a deformed past.
Mdm Khaw will not live for long at her tender age of 89. But that motherly spirit, that love that never gives up, that vision of a future of hope for the lost, is what this broken world so desperately need. It is a love that Calvary offers, and she had taken it in all her imperfections to the end stage of her fragile life.
Alas, we can’t lie to ourselves any longer. For whether we are at the top of the mountain or bottom, enduring change and happiness is often found at the overcoming valleys of our life. That is where we experience enduring, unconditional love to guide us home. Amen.
