Daily Lessons from Life 02 June 2013 - Mutual Encouragement

A very depressing news about a 31-year old mother killing her 9-year old boy who might be suffering some sickness as he is often wheeled around in a pram even at this age. She has been arrested and if she, supposedly pushed the boy over, did, she may face the death sentence for murder according to the news report. Grassroot leaders of that constituency supposedly visited her flat after the incident to understand more. My guess is, purely speculative, she was driven to this moment of insanity to push her boy over to end his life due to insurmountable or overwhelming stress of caring for him. That act must be senseless and irrational and could well be act 1 as act 2 is for her to jump to her death as planned. We will learn more about this case in the days to come. A very sad situation. There is no winner here. Lessons for me are: 1. what type of help could this single mother have from the community? had she seek help before and if so what happened?; 2. what could the neighbours had done for her? It seemed that she and her mother who lived with her and the boy kept very much to themselves. What can the neighbours do if they do not open up? Is proactively asking them if they need help appropriate and welcome? We will never know. Yet, it is something all of us may want to reflect and ponder on. I for one are not that close to my neighbours besides the usual cursory greeting when we see each other at the life lobby or in the same life. Unsatisfactory and a bit shy to admit such is the state of affairs; 3. the news report of the mother may face death penalty is really insensitive. Sure the laws is clear on this but do we really need to read about this? Surely she could not be feeling too good and death may be a relief for her when rationality returned and she realised that the boy is dead and gone forever? A tragic situation. May be reflecting something deeper in how our first world society pay attention to the struggling fellow Singaporeans and residents of this tiny Red Dot. May be this is a very exceptional case. May be many other families in similar situation receive good quality and timely help. I hope so too... May more such families be discovered early and mutual encouragement provided for them to keep going and make life less stressful for the care-givers.