There is not a total loss of hope. Taking autism for example, there are people who are more aware of it because of the media. They have watched Hollywood’s Rain Man and Mercury Rising, both Korea and Japan’s versions of the film Marathon, or read English author Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in The Night-Time and autistic local author Eric Y Chen’s Mirror Mind, among others.
Perhaps it will, in the end, be the media that will act as the catalyst for folks to understand and cheer on real-life special protagonists.
The 2nd Step
So where do we go from here? Everyone asks questions like ‘Who will look after the children when the parents are no longer with them?’ and ‘What is going to happen to them?’ One can only do what is humanly possible. One too can have faith.
Once, we were sitting at the entrance hall of my brother’s school awaiting dismissal time. My mother had gotten into a conversation with a lady whose daughter was a Down’s Syndrome child with multiple handicaps. She was beautiful, a tiny delicate thing about three years old. As they spoke, I watched the mother shed quiet tears.
My mother took her hand and said, ‘The best we can do is give the children as much love as we can, for as long as they are here with us on this earth. That is the best we can do, and no one could ask more of you.’
Another family we met at one of the special education centres had a son who was four or five years older than Jan. He had low-functioning autism. The boy was big and burly, much larger than his mother, and sat in a chair staring blankly. From time to time, he would scream for seemingly no reason. His screams were ear-piercing.
His mother was a stout, handsome, well-dressed lady sporting a large diamond on her finger. But her face was worn and her eyes vacant and dull. She held limply onto her only child’s hand, telling my mother that she had not dared to try for another.
My mother, in a thoughtful mood, had once said to me, ‘Take the tallest, largest, toughest, strongest tree there is, and twenty men to try and shake it with their hands. The tree will not budge at first. It is such a proud and strong tree. But if the men continue to try and shake it, hour after hour, day after day, for weeks, months, years, even a tree like that will one day give way, its once-strong roots loosed from the ground.’
Chapter 6
How One Is Declared
Unfit For Duty
The 1st Step
National Service.
Almost every male denizen in our fair land has to undergo this rite of passage. Local literature, media and coffeeshop raconteurs have all had a hand in welding it into the foundation of our culture. Indeed, it has a sub-culture of its own. No one with a Singaporean identity of any kind is unfamiliar with its folkways.
Still, I was surprised when my brother got the summons a few months short of his eighteenth birthday.
The family was at home one afternoon when my father handed me the letter and my brother’s documents. He asked if I could do him a favour and call up the relevant people as he was busy.
For a fleeting moment, I envisaged my brother enlisting. It could end in no other way than him bossing his sergeant around.
I could either be annoyed or amused at the fact that my brother had gotten the summons at all. At that point I was much more inclined to see it in a comedic light. So I carried on entertaining the waggish idea.
We would have to remind the officers to seal, lock or install grilles on all the windows. They would also have to take especial care to keep their keys with them wherever they go, because my brother has a talent for making keys vanish. He also has a knack of locking the doors involved before he does (my family is constantly replacing doorknobs in the household; it has become something of a regular monthly expense). Oh, and they would too have to be informed that he prefers eating with a pair of kitchen scissors and a fork.
Just imagine.
Oh, also, Mr Officer Person, Sir, we think you had better mind his toiletries. He has a habit of squeezing whole bottles and tubes of soap and toothpaste down the drain for the heck of it. You might also want to rethink putting a rifle in his hands. He will accept it very happily, of course. He would not have any trouble dismantling it, either, with his experience in dismantling a lot of things at home. He would probably follow up by dismantling the rest of the company’s rifles.
Last but not least, we do want him back at the end of his service. You see, everyone who has minded him in his life has always grown so attached to him they wanted to bring him home, and teared because they missed him. You probably would too, but we can’t let you have him just the same.
My father’s voice brought my attention back to the letter.
‘Do they really want him?’ I asked, amused. ‘He would get more exercise that way.’
‘Why don’t you call them and see?’ joked Dad, setting the documents down on my desk.
‘Wouldn’t they have his record?’ I asked, feeling slightly incredulous as I looked over the letter.
‘I suppose they can’t check each and every person’s record,’ my father said.
‘Oh, can’t they?’ I responded, drawing out a pen as my father explained whom to contact.
‘Okay, leave it to me; I’ll settle it,’ I said, sorting the documents in order. My father thanked me and left the study.
My family has done this many times, making calls and visits to explain, ‘Oh no, he can’t’ or ‘No, he won’t’ and ‘This is why.’ I used to loathe it,
