Middle Of An Hectic Weekend II: Not Losing My Head

When we left Luke's former school, it was still more than an hour before I sent the two boys back to Calvary Care Home (CCH) for lunch and tuition. I decided to drop by at Tesco to buy some food for the boys' fellowship later that evening. When we came out from the hypermarket, David requested me to bring him to buy fish food.

These two boys took turns to sit next to me and play with the koala bear which was hanging on the sun shade. While I was driving towards Bukit Baru, I suddenly noticed the koala bear which was clipped to the sun shade was only left with the body! Its head must have been extracted accidentally while one of them was playing with it.

As soon as we stopped in front of the fish shop, I ordered the boys to look for the missing head inside the car but it was nowhere to be seen. Actually the toy did not mean anything special to me. It had been given to me as a souvenir from an insurance agent who had come back from a rewarding trip in Australia.

Recently years, my attitude towards my possessions had slowly changed. In the past, I would have nagged at the boys for hours to make them feel condemned. VC used to tease me that if someone got injured when breaking anything of mine, I would care for the object rather than the person. He had to endure my punches on his back after cracking a bit my one-month-old sofa, and to stand my long papaya face after my glass bottle slipped from his hand and shattered on the floor.

This time, I only banned the boys from playing their songs during the trip back to CCH later and told them to be more watchful when touching anything. When I locked the car door, I closed the case and we went into the fish shop.

While David was surveying fish to buy, Luke and I were watching other small pets. A couple entered. The woman with a desperate look was mumbling in front of the hamsters, "Any of them look like ours?" When the shopkeeper approached her, she said, "During my absence from the house, my cat ate my three hamsters..."

I imagined the bloody scene in which the whole bodies of the three poor living creatures were being chewed by their predator. Then I thought of my headless koala bear. At least this fellow had not suffered any pain or shock when it was "beheaded". I immediately thanked God that I had overhead the woman and stopped feeling sad for the non-living decoration in my car.

Now when I look at the koala bear, I remind myself, "You've lost your head, but I don't lose mine."