One day while driving to work my phone rang. On the other side was the voice of a little girl. “Daddy, please return home quickly, I miss you!” I knew this little girl must have dialled the wrong number as I would not have mistaken my own daughter’s cute voice for hers.
I have been receiving a lot of unknown calls lately. So I politely replied to her, “You got the wrong number.” Then, I hung up.
The next few days, the same phone number kept calling me and it irritated me. Sometimes, I would give a rude reply to the caller and sometimes I would rather ignore the call.
One day, the same number called again and unlike my usual self, I calmed myself down to pick up the call as I was curious of why this little girl kept calling my number.
I picked up the call and heard the same voice of the little girl but this time her voice was weak and her breath seemed short. “Daddy, Please come back quickly. I miss you very much! Mother told me this was the correct number. This is your phone number.”
“Daddy, I am in pain! Mother told me you are very busy at work and mother looked after me day and night. She’s getting tired. Daddy, I now it must be very hard and tough for you to work every day so if you cannot come, can you blow me a kiss?”
I could not reject the request from this cute voice so I made a few kissing sounds for her. After the little girl heard my kisses, she said, “Thank you….daddy, I am….very happy, I feel…so happy…..”
Just as I was getting interested with this little girl’s call attempts, the sobbing voice of a lady took over, “I’m sorry sir to have troubled you for the past few weeks. I sincerely apologise. I wanted to call you when I have finished all my troubles here but I really am sorry.”
“My child here lives a very sad life. From the day she was born, she was diagnosed with bone cancer and her father passed away not long ago, from a car accident and I didn’t have courage to tell her about this bad news.”
“She had to go through chemotherapy every day and the suffering is too much for a child like her to bear. After every chemo session and when the pain is too much for her, she would call out for her father as he always encouraged her to stay strong.”
“I really did not have the courage to tell a sick child that her father is dead. So, from the day her father passed away, I came up with a random phone number which turned out to be yours…..”
After listening to her story, I was totally saddened by it. “How is the child now?” I asked.
“Niu Niu has just passed away…you must have given her a goodbye kiss…she left with a smile on her face. Before she left, she held on tightly to the phone she used to call you. I thank you for making my little girl’s last moments a happy one.”
I immediately broke down in tears after hearing the little girl has passed away…
