One Door and Only One

Perhaps one symptom of getting old is when lyrics of songs which one sang as a child start playing in the mind. Of late this is happening quite a fair bit to me. My first exposure to music and songs were the hymns and choruses which I sang in primary school (other than the old evergreen mandarin songs of 50's blared over redifussion at home).

This particular hymn suddenly popped up in my mind after a visit to my student's home.The lyric goes like this:

"One door and only one
And yet its sides are 2
Inside and outside
On which side are you?

One door and only one
And yet its sides are 2
I'm on the inside
On which side are you?"

(Basically it is a Christian chorus which teaches about being saved when one chooses to be inside)

My recalling of this chorus has no religious angle. It is just so situational. This little Pri 3 girl is presented for counselling because of very high absenteeism rate. She could go for weeks without turning up at school. As the government now has a policy of compulsory education, there is a standard operating procedure to arrest the problem of high absenteeism. This includes home visit by school counsellor, family counselling by other agencies and court procedures when all effort fails. The MOE however hardly resort to the last step because honestly it is impractical to put more stress on the family which is usually already dysfunctional.

2 weeks ago I made a visit together with a social worker from a family service centre (FSC) to the girl's home. It was my fifth visit to the house. The first visit early in the year was the most successful because her mother was caught by surprise. So she acknowleged the importance of education, shared her health problems including her suffering from depression, spoke of her financial difficulties and promised to send the kids to school nevertheless. To assist her she was linked up to the FSC which offered free counselling service and which obtained for her a huge financial subsidy to put her child in student care thus enabling her to work etc. Effectively the family just needs to pay a nominal monthly amount of $5 to place the child in the student care which is directly opposite the school. After a short span of more regular attendance, the child reverted back to the routine of missing school and not turning up even at the student care as well.

At the second home visit, after knocking for almost 15 minutes, a tenant appeared at the door. We sought his help to get the girl's mum to talk to us. He reappeared after 5 minutes to pass a message that she was sick and unable to meet us. All other subsequent visits that followed were futile though we could sense that she was in the house. A neighbour shared with us that the kids are ferried every morning to a relative's house and return in the evening whilst the mother remains at home. Both the social worker and me are dumbfounded why she wouldn't bring the kids to the student care instead.

It is known that people sometimes find it hard to muster strength to reach out for help. In this case however help is at the doorstep for this family, within reach by just opening the door. As the knockings on the wooden door became louder and louder and the callings of her name became more of a nuisance to her neighbours (as if we were loan sharks) we took a breather and silence fell between us. The wooden door remained shut whilst we stared at the flame of the oil lamp hanging on the corridor. The flame fluttered a little but kept burning, casting a sense of sad incomprehension on the door that closed on us.

"One door and only one
And yet its side are 2......"