Not Enough Presents

As much as I adore looking at royalty and dwelling in fantasy, I am more than a little baffled by a news report that I read not long ago about how Sydney-siders (and probably other Australians too) can give their congratulatory presents to the newly christined Prince Christian of Denmark.

I absolutely congratulate them on the good news and I think it should be celebrated but there are many more underpriviledged children and orphans out there without a single present. Everytime I see extravagance like this being splurged, I cast my memory back to a particular afternoon in 1985 when I was waiting for my school bus and there came along, a mother and her two young girls, one of whom she was carrying.

From their appearance, you could tell they were a struggling family and as I peered into her plastic bag of shopping, I saw scraps of food, loose bananas which were over ripe and an apple or two (when apples were usually sold 4 for $1). As they walked past me on their way to the makeshift houses at the construction site (which probably meant they were living there while her husband worked), the older girl pointed to a ball in the huge drain and said that she wanted one too. Immediately, her mother put the other child down and tried to make her way down the drain so that she could reach the ball. She tried a few times, holding onto the railing while trying to lower herself, so that she could gain some footing, failing each time. Her daughter witnessed her mother's love and after seeing her futile attempt, cried to her Mom to stop, and that she didn't want that ball anymore. The mother ignored her cries initially until she realised that it was her daughter 's love for her that made her realise that there are more important things to life than extravagances like this.

It was heartbreaking to watch because the ball was only at most a dollar but it taught me a very good lesson, which is always to take pity on others that are more unfortunate than I am, no matter how poor I am or become. I watched their backs as she picked up her child and her small bag of shopping and walked back to their homes. They might not remember this particular incident because there must be other times when similar events would have happened but they touched a stranger and here I am sharing this real life incident I once saw ...