Sharif and His Bad Days...

That evening Sharif and I were talking at one of the beach's gazebo in Teluk Likas (Likas Bay).  He seemed to have had a bad time that day, it was Wednesday 13 March 2013. 

He told me a story of when he was at a very difficult time of his life when he had only RM 28 money in his pocket.  He had phoned his employer several times to ask for his two months’ salary that has yet to be paid but his employer ignored his calls.  The rice stored in his house was good for one more cooking and that made him really worried.  But after so much thought, he decided to go out and buy additional food supply with that little money he had.

When he arrived at the shop, he heard a faint sound of an old lady crying nearby.  He approached the old lady and asked why was she crying.  The old lady replied that she could not help it as she felt helpless to help her grandson who was sick at home as she does not have any money to do anything.  She told him that both of the child’s parents were currently serving time in prison and she was left to care for the child.  She said that she has no money at all to buy food and medicines and no means of contacting her relatives for help.  Sharif felt pity for the old lady.  He weighted his options but with a heavy heart, he handed over the RM 28 money to the old lady and told her to use the money to buy medicines for the child and try to contact her relatives for further assistance.

He returned home empty handed.  He then ransacked his room for coins and found 40 cents.  He went to a public phone and tried to call his employer again.  But again there was no answer.  Suddenly, he noticed someone's wallet left  on top of the public phone.  He ignored it at first and waited from 7.00 pm to 8.30 pm for the owner to show-up looking for the wallet.  But there still no sign of the owner.  He pondered on what to do with it and decided to open the wallet and found RM 500 inside it. 

“Wow…. this is a lot of money.”  He thought to himself, “Hmm… maybe this is God’s way of extending his help.” He decided to leave only RM 50 inside the wallet and took the rest.  He then sent the wallet to a nearby Police Station and left his phone number with the police.  He also returned to the shop to look for the old lady again as he wanted to give more money to her but the lady was nowhere to be found.

The owner of the wallet never called.

Sharif then told me another story when he found an even larger sum of money. He said that it happened on the first day after New Year’s celebration that also happened to be his birthday.  He said that he went to a public phone booth and found a wallet on top of it.  Inside the wallet, there was RM 1000 cash money.  He took it for safe keeping and waited there for about an hour as he feared that another person might just take it.  The money could be for a very important purpose he thought and so he waited. 

He decided to drive around the place in his car to see if he could locate anyone looking for the missing wallet.   After the fourth turn, he saw someone looking around using torchlight.  He stopped and took out the identity card from inside the wallet and approached the man.  When he came nearer, the person’s face was the same as in the identity card. Sharif knew that that was the owner and gave back the wallet with the RM 1000 money still inside.  

The man was relieved and told Sharif that he took out the money from the bank to pay for his wife’s surgery.  He said that he had lost his handphone earlier and came up to the public phone booth to try and call whoever found his handphone to return it back to him but in his haste left his wallet there instead.  He chided himself for his bad luck.

He was so thankful to Sharif and gave Sharif RM 200 to show his gratitude.  But Sharif handed it back to him.  As the man still insisted, Sharif decided to keep just RM 100 and gave the other RM 100 to the man.  Sharif told the man that he is donating the RM 100 for the man’s wife surgery.  

He smiled at me and said, "I considered the RM 100 as a birthday gift from God to me".

Sharif then held my hand and told me of his late grandmother’s advice to never steal from anybody or take anyone’s properties.  His grandmother told him that when you found something valuable, just stand and wait on the spot for a few hours.  If no one comes to look for it, you may then take it but you must place a rock in its place instead.   

We were still talking when two small little girls walked near us.  They were probably the children of the homeless foreigners living under the nearby Likas Bay’s bridge.  I asked Sharif to call them out in his native language.  The children responded by coming near us.  Sharif then handed over to them a box of the KFC snake plate leftover chicken that we had for dinner.  He has such a good heart.  I hope his bad day will be replaced with a good day from tomorrow and continue onward.  Amen.

Sunset at Likas Bay