My Beloved 3M

Two things happened last week which made me realise something. 

The first was due to a somewhat distressing incident in class which left me quite saddened.

It wasn’t the first time I’d been affected by my students and I was under the assumption that the sadness would soon fade away. 

It did not.

The lingering pain lasted for the next two or three days and I was forced to come to the conclusion that this was not your dime-store variety pain.

After considerable contemplation, I came to the epiphanous realisation that the last time I felt such pain was when I had been hurt by someone I cared deeply about. 

It was in that precise moment last week that the deep affection I have for my Three Moo-ers was affirmed.

Lest you think I make a mountain out of a molehill, consider that I am not a person given to forming fond attachments to people, not easily at least. My relationship with my parents during the “wonder years” of my childhood has ensured my relative detachment from humanity at large. 

Something I pray daily and desperately for God to change since I turned to Christ five years ago.

But, yes, the depth of pain I felt attested to one inalienable truth. 

The second was a dream I had on Friday night.

I was sleeping rather fitfully, despite my tiredness, but I managed to drift off to sleep long enough for me to experience the most vivid dream I’d had in years 

I dreamt that one of the Three Moo-ers, she of half-Javanese parentage, had been murdered. I was most appalled in the dream, having come across the news of the murder in the front page of our dear national newspaper. The odd thing was that I thought I had dreamt about the murder the night before it happened in my dream.

A dream within a dream. Whoa. 

The thing was, I remembered (in the context of my dream), upon reading the newspaper, that I had seen said girl walking off the night before with a tow of unsavoury-looking boys following ominously behind her. I had half-considered offering to walk her to safer climes, fearing that she might be in harm’s way, but put the thought out of my head, whether out of laziness or propriety, I do not know.

It was thus rather Spiderman-esque as I found out that my moment of indecision had led to her demise. In my guilt and shame, I wailed a mournful “Nooooooooooooooo!”. A few moments later, in rather cliché fashion, I woke for real.

I was quite affected by the dream the rest of the day. All I could think of was that if something like that ever happened in reality, not just to that particular Three Moo-er but to any Three Moo-er, I would never be able to forgive myself. 

I was and still am truly surprised by the effect the dream, as well as the incident earlier in the week, had on me. 

It hasn’t led to a fresh bout of melancholy or moodiness but rather a prolonged season of thanksgiving.

I thank my Father in heaven that he has healed my heart to a point (though there’s much work on my heart to be done…) where I have the capacity to love others deeply once more.

For we can only truly be hurt by the ones whom we truly love. 

All thanks be unto you, Father.

Thank you for helping me to love the girls you have placed under my charge – my beloved 3M.