There's a story behind this picture.
It's been a while since everything happened.
It's been quite a journey getting to this stage.
Which is why I'm glad to be able to sit here on this particular day at this very spot and not feel the tinge that I used to feel once before.
In the same way I'm glad I'm able to watch Miss Brown diligently and carefully munch through the pineapple tarts we brought along for her doctor's appointment as we sit together here right now.
A scene like this could not have been possible when Miss Brown got admitted to the S ward of B Hospital several years ago.
Back then when we sat here with the pastoral team of the church, we weren't sure if we were doing the right thing, we weren't sure how the future would be, we didn't know how to get her out of her funk, and everyone's emotions were at an all time high.
But getting her admitted, or rather, re-admitted, had been deemed the best thing to do.
I'll never forget that night where we put her in a cab (without telling her where we were going) and brought her back to the hospital.
It was not a pleasant journey.
She had been on a day's break from the hospital that particular day, but instead of resting at the place where we'd brought her to, the next morning she made a run for it back to her home.
It would have been fine had she decided to stay at home.
But, no, she hadn't come home to rest.
Instead she had come home only to take a few things, including a stack of name cards (of strangers she did not know) just so (we guessed) she could randomly ring them up and ask them for help to bring her to her (wayward) daughter who had- a year prior- abandoned her- and subsequently, systematically cut off contact with her.
To an extent Miss Brown cannot be blamed for such a determination (even though there would have been consequences on other fronts).
Her daughter, after all, was a girl who had come into her life as a baby of 7 months, and had remained by her side all the way until now.
It is difficult for us to fully comprehend the emptiness Miss Brown must have felt when she came home one evening to find her daughter's bedroom emptied out of her belongings.
Save except for a couple of blouses and sweaters, everything else- the bed, the table, the clothes, the toiletries, the computer- had all been taken away.
We will also never understand the stream of questions Miss Brown must have asked herself after she found out that not only was her daughter not going to come home, she was fine going around telling everyone else just what she really thought of her adoptive mother.
Miss Brown found such claims very, very, very hard to believe.
And she wanted to hear from the horse's mouth.
She wanted her daughter to tell her to her face that all those claims were a lie and that she truly loved her mother.
To hear it only from a third party- that party would either have to be lying, or her daughter must have made those claims under duress.
Miss Brown refused to accept those things as truth.
And she was not going to give up her pursuit for answers even though her daughter had made a police report against her when she turned up at the door of the apartment where the girl (and her boyfriend) had rented a room.
So she tried.
At the bank where she had to go to make an enquiry about the apartment that all three of them had a name in (then), she wanted to ask the officer to help contact her daughter and arrange for a meeting (aka family reunion) at the bank.
At the courts where she had to turn up because of a certain issue, her daughter was there, and she kept looking over- yearning for her daughter to turn and look at her- but that didn't happen.
Was it any wonder then that Miss Brown decided it was pointless to bathe and dress properly and wash her hair?
Was it any wonder then that she decided she wasn't interested in making meals for herself or having any meals bought over for her, and that she had no desire for the basic tenets of living at all?
It was around this time- when she stopped washing her hair, when she stopped eating- that she was first admitted to the hospital.
When she seemed a little better, it was suggested that she take a day's break.
And that is when she did her little runaway.
We don't know what would have happened had we arrived at her home fifteen minutes later.
Miss Brown might have been trying to make her way to the Lavender/Balestier area.
Miss Brown might have been attempting to call others up for help.
And (knowing her state of mind) she might have done something harmful to herself just so she could have whoever was rendering her assistance contact her daughter- especially at the hospital- where her daughter would have been considered next of kin.
All these possibilities, thankfully, did not happen.
Instead Miss Brown was re-admitted back to the hospital where she afterward improved. From there she went to another temporal residential place, and finally ended up at the residential place where she is now.
Her mood is no longer the same as before.
If I were to compare her mood with that before all of this s*** happened, I'd say she is more subdued, more quiet, and more distant to express herself, but she is lucid, she is able to tell us stuff, and with a lot of multiple choice questions, she is able to tell us what she wants and what she doesn't.
At least she is not going to refuse those tarts.
And at least she'll allow us to break off the sweet, sticky filling bit by bit and feed them to her.