Serendipity
By Joanne Marie Combong-Pijuan

Contentment

The past week has been quite hectic for me and my family. We've all been busy doing our usual errands and responsibilities and at the same time preparing for a much needed (and long delayed) summer vacation. To add to the growing excitement over the three day vacation, another kind of fanatic anticipation has also taken over my husband and son. They've been hawkishly counting the days until “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” finally hit the theaters and took them out of their misery. So like a bunch of nerds that we are, we had to first make a detour to the galaxy far, far away (meaning the nearest theater) before embarking on our road trip.

The vacation was pure bliss of course. There were minor snags along the way but the bottomline is, we had fun. On the way home I thought of how lucky I was and how blessed. I was with the two people I loved most in the world and although we all looked like lobsters (the 50+ SPF sunscreen obviously didn't do much), we were happy. We have everything that we could ever want and we couldn't ask for more. This realization was further strengthened when, in one of our gas stops, my son had to prod me to buy water from a child peddler. When asked why we had to buy when we had a cooler filled with drinks at the back seat, my son explained that we could afford to spare some money and help the kid. He added that the kid was poor while we had more than enough.

And so, here's a little story that I'd like to share with you that affirms how blessed and how truly fortunate we all are. I hope that this story will inspire you as it inspired me and make us all thankful of what we have.

After a conversation with one of my friends, he told me despite taking two jobs, he brings back barely above $1,000 per month, he is happy as he is.

I wonder how he can be as happy as he is considering he has to skimp his life with the low pay to support a pair of old parents, in-laws, a wife, 2 daughters and the many bills of a household.

He explained that it was through one incident that he saw in India that happened a few years ago when he was really feeling low and touring India after a major setback.

He said that right in front of his very eyes he saw an Indian mother chop off her child's right hand with a chopper. The helplessness in the mother's eyes, the scream of pain from the innocent 4-year-old child haunted him until today.

You may ask why did the mother do so; had the child been naughty, had the child's hand been infected?? No, it was done for two simple words- - -TO BEG!

The desperate mother deliberately caused the child to be handicapped so that the child could go out to the streets to beg.

Taken aback by the scene, he dropped a piece of bread he was eating half-way. And almost instantly, a flock of 5 or 6 children swamped towards this small piece of bread which was covered with sand, robbing bits from one another. The natural reaction of hunger.

Stricken by the happenings, he instructed his guide to drive him to the nearest bakery. He arrived at two bakeries and bought every single loaf of bread he found. He spent less than $100 to obtain about 400 loaves of bread (this is less than $0.25 per loaf) and spent another $100 to get daily necessities.

Off he went in the truck full of bread into the streets. As he distributed the bread and necessities to the children (mostly handicapped) and a few adults, he received cheers and bows from these unfortunate. For the first time in his life he wondered how people can give up their dignity for a loaf of bread which cost less than $0.25.

He began to tell himself how fortunate he is. How fortunate he is to be able to have a complete body, have a job, have a family, have the chance to complain what food is nice and what isn't nice, have the chance to be clothed, have the many things that these people in front of him are deprived of.

Now I begin to think and feel it, too! Was my life really that bad? Perhaps... no, I should not feel bad at all... What about you? Maybe the next time you think you are, think about the child who lost one hand to beg on the streets.

"Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want; it is the realization of how much you already have."