Hong Chi - Hands on hands

Many of the kids who stay at Hong Chi Number 3 School are severely handicapped. They cannot walk, cannot talk, cannot eat by themselves and cannot even sit up straight. Basically they have very little control of their muscles. Their cannot hold anything in their hands because their hands curl up into balls. It must be very hard living a life this way.

Even though we can spend very little time with them, I like to help them enjoy that little bit of time. Whenever I can, I try to massage their hands, and help them to open their hands. I have to force their hands to open, and it feels like they are fighting me. But I know their resistance is involuntary. Because I can see in their eyes they enjoy having their hands massaged. Because I can feel their hands relax when I massage their hands. Sometimes their hands relax enough to open up, to lay flat on the table, to hold up a ball or a pen. I can sense that they enjoy it. Even though they cannot speak. Some would grunt. Some would turn to look at you. They use their eyes to tell you how they feel. How sad it is that when we, who have much more powerful means of speech, choose to hurt each other.

What we can do is not much. But I believe more kindness is always better than less.