The gift of time

Gave some time to this 15-year-old who was drinking a cup of tea and hanging around in the YWCA pantry while I and two other ministry mates were having our dinner before the children's workshop. One of them asked him to sit down and join us. He sat down next to me and placed his cup of tea and a Marvel comic book on the table. He was still in his school uniform. He was drinking his tea, while he was looking at me eat my yong tau foo. He told me that he had overheard me saying earlier that I had eaten cheese with a bread roll the night before. I explained to him that at my age, it's tough to maintain one's weight, much less lose weight, because our metabolic rate slows rapidly beyond a certain age. And how I was trying to avoid eating carbs at night. He then said that brown rice was nutritious but he didn't like eating it because it was super dry. I chatted with him about how I loved graphic novels, especially V for Vendetta and the Sandman Series. He quipped that it was so nice for him to be in a situation whereby it's like a grandmother telling him that she was reading comics (do I look like a grandmother?!). I corrected him and said "auntie, auntie; not grandmother!" I carried on talking with him. He told me why he was there and then he said that he would hang around before heading home. I wondered why he wasn't keen to go home but I didn't ask him about it. He shared about school, what he did that day, his family and so on. Soon, it was close to 7.30pm and we had to leave the pantry to go into a room for the workshop. I told him that we had to leave, and that was when he introduced himself and I told him my name. My parting shot to him was "don't hang around too late before going home, okay?" And I said bye to him.

My reflection: Very often, all that another person needs from us is just time and company.