Forever Young

Last week, a boy age 21 showed up to the shelter. He struck me immediately. He is thin and wiry but on the taller side. He has a stunted mustache that gives him character. His eyes light up with curiosity when you talk to him. Any stranger could tell that this kid brings happiness to others with his energetic smile because on a face that young, those smile creases mean he's been eating up life.

Waiting for my Vietnamese lesson with Cha, I came over to him to welcome him. I admit, I was curious about him, because I've been conditioned to identify the new folks as the fearful looking ones who look at me like I'm another life form because I open my mouth and English flows out. We had a brisk but meaningful 10 minute conversation as I welcomed him to the shelter. There was something about him that I couldn't quite put my finger on, but I took an instant liking to him.

A couple hours later in the darkness enveloping our shelter, I walked out to the asphalt area to take in some evening air to think about my long, tiring, fulfilling day. After a few minutes, a cell phone light went off a few feet next to me and I realized I hadn't seen Hung, the young man, chilling out next to me. He smiled his infectious smile and handed me a can of Mr. Coffee and a pack of cigarettes from 7-eleven. In the darkness, as he handed me these items, I realized two thing. One, his hand was injured, missing 4 fingers. The large swollen area on his palm was from a skin graft. The doctor was luckily able to use skin from Hung's thigh to cover the area where a faulty machine had obliterated his hand. I hadn't noticed the injury earlier, because his shining personality had made it hard to notice anything else. The other epiphany which had stumped me earlier was that Hung reminded me of my own 21 year old brother, his demeanor, his smile, his zest for life...but mostly, his big heart. For the first time in Taiwan, I truly, deeply missed home -- the home that isn't a place, rather, the home that's made special by the people who fill your heart with laughter and fuzzy memories. I missed my family.and felt the distance of the oceans between us.

I asked Hung why he was giving me those items and he replied that one, I looked tired, and two, I could probably use a cigarette, a whole pack. In my mind I kept hearing, "But I just met you and you shouldn't be spending money on me." Instead, I insisted he should use the items for himself. He was adamant, "Don't worry about it. Money is money. One day you have it, the next day you don't. I see how much you help people here and I want to do something nice for you."

It was decided. It would have been crushing for him had I not accepted his gesture. I opened the Mr. Coffee and took in a generous gift from a boy I had known for only two hours, but I insisted that we smoke the pack together over the next week. He might have seen me tearing up, and I'm ok with that. We're all - here and overseas - suffering in some way. Feeling is part of the human condition, right? For some it's emotional. For this boy it's also physical, yet, in the midst of the chaos of my day this young man stepped into my life to remind me that the fountain of goodness, the well of caring in humans is inextinguishable. For that evening we were a couple of folks sharing our stories that brought us to Taiwan, missing our families, by the faint light of two cigarettes.

*Hung is a fictional name to protect confidentiality.
*Permission was given by man in photo for me to post it.
*Neither this writer nor VietACT endorse the use of cigarettes.