The Smallest Gesture is the Biggest Gesture

Have you ever got to the point that you thought you were helpless and had no power at all about something?

I'm feeling that at the moment.

A friend, a family, a brother is very, very sick somewhere else but here in this world. He is alone with no friends and family around. Literally. He's all but positivity. He wants to go back here but he can't. He wishes he could turn back the time and fix things right, but it's impossible. No matter how many times I told him in multiple emails that he was not alone, that I was always here whenever he needed me, he couldn't stop thinking negative - as most of sick people do - and stayed thinking that nothing could be done anymore to make things better.

I'm not there to hug him. I'm not there physically to lift up his spirit and to encourage him that nothing is impossible. I'm not there in real to tell him that if he can't cheat death, he can still be friends with it and negotiate the length of time he can spend more in this world.

Friends, if you ever encounter this kind of thing in your life, don't stop trying. Every little thing you do matters. May be not for us, but for others who need it more.

It was his birthday a few days ago. He wrote me an email that he was so truly sad that he was sick and alone on that day. And it hurt me as I read it because it was not true. Because he's still got me.

So even though I am normally overtired when I have both work and French class in a day, at that time I was psyched. As soon as I got home, I took out my cake recipe book, prepared the ingredients for his favourite chocolate cake, and baked it.

I also made a small flag from a scrap paper and cotton bud stick and wrote on the paper "Happy Birthday, Brother."

Being satisfied with the cake and the flag, I took pictures of it in various angles, sent them to him that very night and put a little note in the email:

You're lucky this time you're wrong. You're not alone.

Being so weak even to check emails, he just sent me a reply last night saying that he couldn't stop crying even at the time he was writing the electronic mail. He was touched and happy and no longer felt that he was alone and pathetic and sick and sinful. I can't count how many phrases of terima kasih (thank you) that he wrote but I know that he knows now that he is not alone. That I'm here to help bear his pain, even for the smallest amount.

I may not be a super doctor that can cure him. I may not be rich enough to fly to him and reach him in my embrace. But I'm a friend to him as he is to me.

Baking a chocolate cake may not be a bombastic gesture. But it is more than enough gesture to get your message across to your loved one that he is loved.