I was rudely awakened to the fact that there are indeed people with hearts made of stones.
Just the other day I sent an email in which the content was a slightly-modified version of this post, to my friends. To my utter disappointment, nobody responded to the email. None of them replied the email, none of them mentioned anything about the email, about Eden, about the handicapped.
And these people I call my friends, didn’t even bother writing back to tell me that they would either support Eden’s cause, or would help spread the news around or that they would keep the email at the back of their minds for further action when they are more financially-independent. But no, none of them said anything. Nothing.
And these are the people who would normally reply mass emails with pictures of recent vacations with their respective boyfriends, I don’t know, maybe just to show off, or with news of recent additions to the family, or with news of recent promotions and engagements. Or simply with news of the good things that are happening to them at that particular moment in time.
I don’t know. Are they too caught up with their own lives that they cannot find time to help other people? Or should I give them the benefit of the doubt that they have already pledge a certain amount to other charities? Am I being too pushy in trying to get people to be concerned with what I am concerned with?
ARGH.. Maybe it runs in my blood. I remember when I was younger and still in school, I never failed to chip in some money whenever the prefects went around to collect donations - either for victims of natural disasters or for the girl next door whose father had just passed away. And I always find it very natural to dig into my wallet for a note or two whenever somebody comes to me with a petition to either build a new temple or a church or a school building.
Which reminds me of an incident that happened in 1992 when I was in Standard 5 and my sister in Standard 1. Back then we had to wear a custom-made name-tag that bears our own name on our school pinafore. My sister’s class teacher told the new students to bring RM 1.70 for a new name-tag. So she brought that amount plus some extra money for food. Apparently, the school head-prefect went to each class with a Milo tin and collected donations for something I couldn’t recall now, and guess what my sister did..?
Hhahaha, yes, she dropped the money my Mum gave her for the name-tags into the Milo tin!
So when the class teacher requested for the money for their name-tags, guess what my sister did?
Muahahaha, she cried while she ran to my classroom and told me that the head-prefect took her money!! I thought she was “robbed” in school until the head-prefect came to my classroom.. Muahahaha.. I couldn’t stop laughing and at the same time felt bad for my sister, so I did what most good sisters would do - I went to her classroom and paid her class teacher the money for the name-tags.
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