A person.

Let me just share with you a story of one of the most influential ladies in my life. I guarantee you, it’ll be a worthy read.

Walking into the maternity ward after multiple temperature checks and an enormous amount of sterilizer on my hands, I immediately spot Mia and Ray in front of the nursery display room, talking to their child as if she could understand and hear them through the thick protective glass.

I willingly approached them unacknowledged, being completely drawn in by the magnetism of this “wee bairn”, blessed with the eyes of her father and lips of the mother.

“Say hi to Auntie Chloe.” Mia said, eyes still fixated on the child, puts her shaky arms around me in appreciation of my arrival.

She opened her eyes and made a little yawn, already exerting her power on me as though she already knew I’d be, voluntarily, cossetting her for the years ahead.

I had never seen the couple’s eyes so alive, so filled in love and incredible awe. This scene brings me back to thinking about how it all started, how I met Mia, and how I got to be so fortunate to experience such a moment with them.

This conversation happened over a Shake Shack take away meal about 6 months ago.

I knocked on the door of Mia’s place, holding in my hands two burger sets.

This is the part I love most visiting her – being welcomed in with the brightest smile and warmest hug no matter the day or time.

I had only known her for around a month then, we only met about once a week at her place because by the time I had come to know her, she was already 3 months pregnant.

We laid down a blanket and started on a shameless sharing of life’s revelations.

I was munching on my lettuce wrap when she started to tell me about the things she had been through. She has come a long way to be at this state right now. Having a roof over her head where she genuinely feels safe under.

Mia originally started off as an aspiring singing instructor, with over ten regular clients and earning 5 digits a month.

She was thriving and loving life until one day -her company’s supervisor, whom she had worked under for 3 years, proposed to organize a new start up with her so they could both earn more.

Who would give up on an opportunity like that?

So naturally, she agreed to it. They even moved in together as business partners.

Things took a turn as days gone by. Her colleague, who was of the opposite sex, started to exude a sense of dominance over her. At social events, he would make her extremely uncomfortable by introducing her to others as his wife. When she was out alone, he would stalk her by activating and connecting to the GPS on her phone. At home, he would pressure her by trying to make her sleep on the same bed with him.

She slept in that house everyday, drowned in fear and anxiety that anything could happen to her at any moment.

Best case scenario, she gets in a fight with him and gets physically hurt. Worst case scenario, she gets sexually assaulted by him and loses the ability to ever see the world the same way again.

Luckily, or not, none of the above happened, but something very unexpected did.

The following unforeseeable event led Mia down a road she never expected to walk on at the age of 26. She sneaked out of the house one night in a desperate search for a temporary antidote to her anxiety. She ended up in a club alone and long story short,

met the man who is now father to her infant.

The story didn’t end there.

When Mia’s colleague found out about her affair, he was not only unhappy about it, but also started giving her death threats, saying that if she didn’t break it off, she wouldn’t make it out the house alive.

She kept this a secret from her lover as she contemplated whether she should break it off to keep both of them safe, and to not drag him into her “emotional mess”.

One thing leads to another, she couldn’t handle the stress anymore and “on one facetime call” she said, she “burst out crying and explained everything helplessly”.

Being the kind and committed man Ray is, he helped her escape from the house and settled her down in a temporary flat rented by his family.

What happened next was, yet another, chain of unfortunate events- the psychopathic colleague was constantly hunting her down by going to places Ray had been spotted at. He tried to frame Ray into being arrested by making up drug-selling sites with Ray’s name on it. He continually sent them both death threats… He was just doing all he could to try to shake up their relationship.

At this very moment, life aain interrupts, something even more unexpected decided to show up.

A baby.

The now unemployed and dependent on her in laws Mia was then faced again with another dilemma in life – will this baby make or break her life? Most importantly, will SHE make or break the baby’s life with everything that’s going on?

“I talked to Ray (the father) about it, but I knew I would never be able to take her life away.”

So, Mia chose the hard way for herself.

She worked together with the father to keep information of the baby completely off social media, and stayed away from town all week to prevent any encounters.

I watched her through the process of it. She was born a bright and carefree person but the troubles had her exhausted and anxious all the time.

She would call me to tell me about silly things the baby did in her belly, but she would also call me to tell me about her incessant worries about the situation.

I would be at their flat and she would be loving and affectionate with her partner, but she would also be angry and quarreling with him.

On some days, she would be up and energetic about cooking for me, on others, she would be low and too tired to even get off the couch.

Thankfully for her, her colleague eventually gave up on his efforts to strip her of her happiness and all she had to do was to hunt for another job. Which she did, successfully, with the help of Ray’s family.

“I sometimes look back and think about how everything happened so coincidentally for a reason, if I were not to have met Ray, I wouldn’t have been saved, If I were not to have been pregnant, I likely would’ve left already in protection of him.”

Now, id like to, just, have you pause for a moment and answer this simple question.

If I were to ask you to describe Mia in a few sentences right now, what would you say?

I hear, strong woman, loving mother, kind lover, a human with emotions, a human with the capability to love, a soul, with all sorts of emotions that anyone of us have or could experience.

Now, I’d like to further invite you to take a step forward and think, why is it that we condemn others based on their physical appearance, when we are actually the same at our core?

I’m not here to call any one out for being racist, I think anyone of us, including me, has occasional thoughts and feelings that pertains to racism. The key here is to understand why we think what we think.

Is there something in your life that’s making you feel a little insecure and so you have the unstated desire to find a way to feel better about yourself?

Is there a traumatic experience related to an offender of a specific race that has shaped your way of looking at the whole ethnic group instead of that one person?

Whatever it is that has caused such feelings in you, I hope that you understand, being equally accepting with everyone doesn’t only benefit the society in a whole, but also yourself.

By judging others based on how they look, you have no idea how many opportunities, love, fun, happiness you are possibility blocking out in your life. You’d never know how it would be to be close to the person, to be a part of their family, to work with them.

All you’ll ever know is how it feels like to hate on them. Based on something that doesn’t even begin to define them.

It’s all up to you to decide whether you prefer living in a world of hatred and anger, or to deal with the feelings inside that’s causing it and hence setting you free to life’s adventures.

Mia is one of my African friends who was scammed to come to Hong Kong by the colleague I initially mentioned.

I never mentioned her being black because, that’s not the point of this article. I’m not here for clout, I’m not here to make people read this out of a sense of pity for the BLM movement.

As much I support human rights movement like that, this article was meant to awaken you to how you really feel inside, and what’s causing you to prefer one group over another based on however you judge them. It need not be race, because I know that’s not the only ‘criteria’ our human minds could make up.

Going back to the day of visiting them at the hospital. I made several stops outside the ward just thinking to myself-

How blessed am I to be in this woman’s and her child’s life?

What can I do to best nourish and protect this little girl?

Just by telling you this, I felt an immense sense of unconditional love filling me up like a cup.

So far, this love for life and myself has driven me far beyond my self-doubts, anxiety, and along the path of living for my passion. It’s what made me start this blog, reach out to people with an open mind, and plan-out my future aspirations.

The elevator at the hospital made a loud “ding” and woke me up from my sentiments.

Walking against the cold air current towards the entrance of the ward, I felt as though every step I take was another towards a reality that better serves me, that motivates me, that I believe so much in that nothing “unfortunate” could shake me.

And there they are, the beautiful couple with a honey sweet baby.