Page 49 - 2023/24 Kaleidoscope Volume9

As a little boy, I had no idea why she would do this. We were not in a good
fi f f nancial situation ourselves; we lived paycheck-to-paycheck, and barely even so.

My curiosity frff equently made me ask her the rationale foff r us donating, but she
would always patiently explain how we had to have empathy foff r others. “We have
to put ourselves in other people's shoes,” I was never satisfiff ed with this answer,

because I simply did not understand. It did not sound right to me.

Disaster struck on the 20th of April 2017. Our home was ravaged in a fiff re;

everything we had saved up, everything that was important to us, everything we
had to eat, was gone. The only things leftff in our house were the damaged walls
and broken ceiling. “Luckily, the fiff re did not spread to our neighbours,” mmmyy

mother said. Luckily? I was beyond confuff sed.

We went to sleep that night biting our fiff ngernailsss... WWWe wwweeere unsure of our
survival; we had nothing leftff . It was almost like thheerrree wwwaaasss a timer foff r us to perish.

The next day when we woke uupp iinn oour broken beds, piles of foff od, daily needs
and monneeyy were leftff on ouurr ddoooorsteps. Cards of greetings fiff lled our mailbox. We

coulldd not belliieeve ouurr eeyyes; we were saved. The neighbours called to infoff rm us of
t thhe upcominngg sscchhedule of mechanics and engineers that would come to fiff x our
houussee;; tthhey did nott discuss with her befoff rehand because they knew that any help

offff eff redd wwouulldd bee rreeje eeccted by my mother. What we worried about yesterday was
no longerr a pprroobbleemm ttooddaayy! It was a miracle.

At last, II fiff nally unnddeerrsstoood everything. “What goes around, comes around”,
if we help others willinglyy,, ootthheerrss would willingly help us. It all made sense to me

now. Respect and kindneess toowaarrddss ourselves is earned, not given. We must treat
people the way that we want to bbe treeaatteed, and that is the golden rule in our lives.

My mother was right all along.

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