¤Touching Stories¤

As I was trying to find something interesting to do this morning, I saw the latest Reader's Digest. [Interesting ker?Erk]My father subscribes it every month and gave to me instead to read . So with tremendous nothing to do, I flipped through it. An article that had caught my eyes was of a picture of a girl, a very old fashioned picture titled Anna's photograph. The story was written by Michael Geisterfer, about his grandmother-Oma Jantje who had a best friend name Anna Drexhage. One day, Anna gave Oma a picture of hers telling that she's going away to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies, long before it became known as Indonesia. She promised to write to Oma, but she never did. Oma then pasted the picture into her photo album.
Anna was greeted by a handsome rich man called Johannes which soon later be her husband upon reaching Indonesia. Johannes was part of the Dutch elite who had ruled the Indonesian archipelago for nearly 300 years. They lived happily with 6 children. Then the Japanese invaded Indonesia and all the Dutch residents were rounded up and interned in concentration camps. The men were separated with the women. In the confusion of separation, Johannes disappeared and Anna never saw nor heard of him again. Later, Anna died of starvation but her children survived, although one just barely. His name was Aren, the third youngest, a thin scraggly boy who had asthma attacks almost felled him that everyone assumed he would be among the first to die,but he lived.
After the war, the orphans were sent to Holland. Aren made his living as a freelance photographer. Being a photographer, he travelled a lot when finally he settled at Edmonton. There he began attending their Sunday morning Dutch-language church services, sitting in the back row, letting the vestiges of familiarity wash over him. It was there that one of the church matriachs, a small, thin woman with long, luctrous hair tied up in a bun, first laid eyes on him. She did not know who he was, only that he was a photographer. With 6 children approaching marriage age, she would probably be requiring his services. "Why don't you invite him over for coffee?"she prodded her eldest daughter. But the daughter was not interested in this reclusive orphan whose hollow eyes and diffident nature kept most people at a distance.
Her younger sister Amelia, though was intrigued by Aren and extended an invitation. Later they began dating and soon get married.
Of all many times Aren drank coffee in the dark salon of Amelia's parental home, he never noticed the photo album sitting on the bookshelf above the tea cabinet. Never, that is until 1983 when he pulled it down and began leafing through it. That's when he came across the faded photograph of the young woman on the veranda.
"Hey,"he said. "That's my mother!"
"No, it isn't," Amelia's mother laughed. "That's my friend Anna, who went to Indonesia in 1925. I never heard from her again. Look," she said, pulling the photograph off the page and turning it over. Sure enough, there in still-legible handwriting were the words"Anna 1925".
"That's my mother," he repeated. "Anna Drexhage."
Oma Jantje stared at him, unable to comprehend this incredible twist of fate. Then tears welled in her eyes. She had always wondered what had become of her dear friend, and now she knew the awful truth. Her sorrow was tempered by sense of wonder: Anna's orphan was now Jantje's son-in-law, a fact that was no longer just dictated by law, but also by the mysterious winds of destiny.

A very touching story. Seems that the world is very small indeed yet I haven't discover it all.

Another touching story...a real-life story happened to my father. He was robbed yesterday night by a Chinese teenager. That boy took his bag, his everywhere-he-go-will-surely-bring bag. His IC, credit cards, quite a lot of money as he just withdrew them, his new handphone, some important documents all were stolen. Luckily he wasn't injured. Nowadays, you can see violence everywhere regardless of whom, who, where etc. To the innocents, do be careful next time, and to the villains, stop doing those crime. Come on la!!!New book meh!! Haiya...Sigh~