Life is better than death. Love; greater than either…

I’ve had this idea of writing what it means to be an orphan few weeks back. I have no intention of offending anyone or whatever through this post; just wanna flesh out my ideas and see what other people might think about it.

I imagine a child going home after school and having no one to talk to about their day. No one to talk to about the conversation they had with the kid who sits next to them in class. Yes, there’s my guardian or grandparents or older sibling but no one really wants to hear that Jason got a new pencil case. Even if I told someone, what would they do? Parents instinctively provide the best for their children and want to setup their seeds to succeed in life. But not auntie, or grandpa or my guardian or the caretaker of the orphanage.

I’ve been to a few orphanages when I was younger, one in Sabah and one in KL, but the latter only to pick people up. You’ve seen the street children of India and the AIDS orphans of Africa. All these lives; no one to say, hey you know what? I’ll get you an even nicer pencil case than Jason’s. Nothing.

I guess for those of us who actually have parents or people who REALLY took care of us, we are blessed. Sometimes they call us Generation Y, sometimes they call us middle-class homes. Other times they call us spoilt brats – but for all the things we have we think of the things that we don’t have and how others go through life without it. I’m sure they cope and they find other outlets but the fact of the matter is its not natural and very real for some people; this emptiness – the void of a parental voice/guidance – genuine in love and generosity.

But of course, there’s always the flipside of the coin – there are some of us who CHOOSE not to talk to our parents. Too involved we say; too meddly. Too sad I say.

I don’t know; life is a tightrope of balance I guess and only when we visit the extremes we will find it easier to adjust the balancing bar.

God bless!