Tears in My Eyes

“Hi! Mr Mani, Ace here. Are you in today?”
“Oh! Miss Ace, I have a meeting, but I can let my staff know that you’ll be coming. So, you go ahead.”
“Oh! Ok. I will. Thank you very much.”
“Welcome.”

After putting down the phone, without delay my hubby and I went straight to check out the school that we planned to send the kids to this year. We were still at Federal Highway as we were actually from Nilai, my parent’s house. The traffic was clear. In just a few minutes, we were already near to the Kelana Jaya Putra LRT station. We took the left lane to take a left turn at the Taman Megah traffic light ahead of us. At the end of the road, we make another left turn and went straight. I saw a traffic light in front of me and I look on my right. I saw the sign “Pusat Penjagaan Kanak-Kanak Cacat Taman Megah”.

I told my hubby to make a stop. He made a turn at the front gate of the school itself. At that moment, I saw lots of handicapped, disabled children watching at us. My heart began to sore. I encourage myself to give it a try since we were already there. My hubby looked at Kakak and asked her solemnly, “Kakak nak sekolah kat sini ke?”.

I felt as if being pinched. I keep myself on guard and carried Dedek with me. A young boy opened the gate for us. The young boy is physically and mentally handicapped. I could see the change in my hubby’s expression. He was worried and terrified. He was tightly holding Kakak.
A staff greeted us. He lead us in the house and we saw the place is full with all sorts of ‘special kids’. Instantly, it breaks my heart. But, to me if there is no other place for me to send my kids, I will have to go through the pain. I could see, a kid with the ‘very big head – excessive fluid sickness’ lying down, besides her was another kid in which with the sickness of, erk… I am not quite sure the name of the sickness, but the kid was very skinny until you can see the bones. At another part of the house, I could see few kids lying down weakly and unattended. Meanwhile, lots of kids in various styles of sitting positions such as sitting in a ‘special chair’, squatting, due to the individual’s syndromes happily watching television.

As I was talking to the staff, there is one particular disabled kid came to us. Her legs were twisted in a position where she could only crawl. I really don’t know how to describe it here. She was pulling my hands and my shirt. I couldn’t help but feel a bit afraid. Although, I know there is nothing that she can do. However, I just couldn’t hide my feelings.

We have to wait for the staff to make a call to the principal of the school. While waiting, another mentally ill girl, I would say she is probably in her teen’s, she was a bit rough and she came to me and start pulling me to show pictures on the board. There was a Christmas tree nearby and Dedek took one of the present, the same girl took her hand and guided her to the tree to put back the present. I couldn’t help but worry.

The staff told us, most of the kids stayed there. Reason being, they are actually from all over Malaysia. There are some kids from Sabah, Sarawak and the parent’s only come down to see them once in a while. Some parent’s put their kids there because they don’t know how to control and look after their kids. The parent’s didn’t know what to do with the kids until some of the parent’s tied, caged and locked the kids for years. Thus, when they got to know of this school, they send the kids here so the caretakers can look after them instead.

Of course, I would find it cruel for the parent’s to do such thing, but somehow we couldn’t really blame them for doing so. The tantrums, the roughness and the wildness they become forced us to act unpredictably. Looking after special kids it is certainly not an easy task. Not everyone has the patience to do so. Thus, humans can behave differently even though it is their own flesh and blood. Not only ‘special kids’ need to be taught, but as well as the parent’s. Even, me!

I got home. Suddenly, my hubby came to me while I was cooking.

“Mama, Babah tak tergamak lah Mama”

I totally understood him. I am aware of his concern. Me too am worried, but as I said if there’s no other place, I have no other choice but to send them there.

But, after a lot of thinking, my hubby is trying to call someone to ask for some other places. In the meantime, I would probably try to call MAGIC, the one that I don’t think I can afford to, however all of this needs sacrifices and I am willing to do just that. Be it!! I don’t have lots of money. So long, my kids get the best of it, I am sure I will be happy of the results later.

This is my wish for NEW YEAR 2006.

Please, dear God, give me strength and patience to ensue with my life.
Amin.