Hello Son,
This entry is supposed to be a continuation from Call 43 : Angel Signs.
Later, as she was writing Call 43, she was not able to relate the Commercial Law story in that Call 43 as the entry was already quite long.
So, she's gonna tell You the story here.
No, she hasn't forgotten.
Your mother, at that point in time of this story, was in her second year of law school.
It was during the exam period.
The next day, she was having her Commercial Law final semester exam paper. A whole afternoon had passed with her doing nothing, and not able to revise. She had been quite stressed-out during the exam week and that evening, she was just sitting in her room, and staring out of the window.
Her lectures notes and commercial law books, were sprawled on her desk. Totally untouched. She remembers buying a thin nutshell on the subject in a desperate attempt to do some last minute revision.
However, last minute or not - the revision wasn't happening.
She couldn't study.
Her concentration had come to a nil.
There were so much to read, and so little time.
She didn't know how to begin. Nor where.
That whole afternoon, she had been restless and had found herself playing and replaying the song:
LET IT BE
(FERRY AID)
again and again and again, for some hard-to describe sense of comfort. This is the actual version - the Ferry Aid version. Not the Beatles. The stars had gotten together to do this song in aid of the families of victims who had perished in the Zebrugge Ferry Disaster (1987). Your mother for some reason, had a cassette that had only this song recorded on it, from beginning to end, on both sides of the tape.
When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be
She had been playing the song in her room, for what appeared to be more than a few hours.
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be ...
She's so gonna fail her paper tomorrow ...
Let it be ...
There will be an answer, she'll find one to tell her mother ...
Oh, let it be.
The song could have gone on longer than those few hours as it was played then, except that there was an interruption at one point.
A knock on the door.
It could have been about 7 or 8pm that night, when she heard someone knocking on her door. Yes, it was night by then. She had been playing the song since afternoon.
She was living in a students' hostel then, and had an individual room to herself. Your mother walked to the door, not expecting anybody to be paying her a visit, as it was exam-time.
Opening the door, she saw one of her juniors, a first year law student, standing outside.
What's a first year law student doing outside her senior's room?
Mom recalls this incident very clearly ...
Removing her scarf, like she expected to be welcomed in, the girl asked your mother casually, "Have You taken your dinner?"
Mom said No.
The girl replied, "You go back to your books, I'll cook dinner."
Huh???
The girl, her junior, had finished her exams, and she claimed to be free that night, to cook dinner for your mother while your mother did some revision.
This was so not a normal occurrence.
It was beyond the ordinary. What stood out most was the NAME of the girl who had stood outside her door to pay her a visit.
Her name -- was Mary.
After singing those LET IT BE lines for like, what - one hundred times - When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother MARY comes to me ... and later seeing a MARY at her door ...
It was a very overwhelming and powerful moment ...
Your mother was so in awe that God had sent her an angel. Perhaps it was Mother Mary who'd sent the girl. It doesn't matter who sent her. What is more important is that your mother's song had somehow reached Heaven's reception.
Mind You ...
It wasn't a Mable, or a Macy, or a Marley, who had appeared at her door. Had it been a Mala or a Mei Ling, she would not have suspected a divine intervention, but the girl who was standing right in front of your mother in her time of trouble and her hour of darkness, was a simple girl named Mary.
Mary ...
How could Mom ignore that and brush aside the significance?
At first, your mother was quite hesitant and had in fact, felt kinda weird having her junior cook dinner for her, but Mary had insisted. Like a mother hen, she had ushered Mom back to the desk and said again, "You do your revision, I'll cook dinner."
Mom will never, ever forget that incident.
With that small little sign of support and the fact that not just anybody came to visit her that night, BUT a MARY, your mother couldn't help but soon began to feel the truth emerging from the lyrics of the song she had been singing absentmindedly the whole time that day :
When the night is cloudy
There is still a light that shines on me
There will be an answer
Let it be
There is still a light that shines on me ...
With that realization, she pulled herself together and went back to her desk. Funny but she has received a little motivation to do her revision then.
There were several chapters (7) in Commercial Law. If she remembers correctly, there would be 6 questions from 6 topics for the exam the next day, and candidates were required to answer 4.
It was already quite late and Mom did not think she'd have the time to read all her chapters. So, she did something very risky which she does not recommend any student to do. She banged on 4 topics. She had no choice. It was late, and exams have been on-going, and mentally, she was exhausted.
She took the risk, picked 4 topics, and just committed as much as she could, to memory. Names of cases and principles of the law in the respective chapters. The narrative part of the questions, she would just have to tembak (shoot).
Mary called her to the kitchen about an hour later.
She had cooked, would You believe it - curry chicken and rice. When you're overseas, and you get to eat rice with curry chicken, it's considered a very, very big treat! She must have gotten the curry powder from one of her housemates.
After dinner, Mary washed up. She made a cup of coffee for your mother, and then she left.
That was an encounter, Mom would never forget.
Truly in one of her darkest and loneliest moments, an angel had paid her a visit to give her a lil hope and support. Although Mom knew the girl by name and face, they don't hang out together. It just was not likely for that girl to drop by that night to pay your mother a visit and to cook for her.
Mother Mary must have sent her.
You can ask Mother Mary about that incident, Son ... I'm sure She'll tell You all about it. :D
The next day, in the examination hall, the first thing she did when the invigilators said, we could turn over our papers, was to skim through all the 6 questions to see if she could at least answer 4.
She couldn't believe it when she saw the questions.
Question 1, Question 2, Question 3 and Question 4.
The 4 topics that she had bet on stared boldly back at her. It so happened that the questions on those 4 topics had been on something she was familiar with because of the revision the night before, as a result of which, she was able to write a thesis on them.
The relief she felt at that moment, is indescribable.
The results she received later in the weeks surprised her when she learned that she had obtained an unexpected standard one level below First Class. She had known she would not fail the paper but she really didn't expect to get a Second Class Upper. She wasn't even sure if she could scrape through third grade to begin with, initially, because Commercial Law is really a very dry subject.
And bor-ring.
Let it be known that God could have sent anybody ... but He chose to send her Mary. Don't You see? Just so she could make a connection to the song she had been singing all day long.
Coming back to Call 43, last paragraph ...
The husband and wife owners of the hotel we were staying in Lourdes, are Peter and Laura. We have said, time and time again, that God had sent us 2 angels in the form of Uncle Peter and Aunty Laura to help us to take care of You whilst we were in Lourdes ... Lourdes being Mother Mary's territory.
It was only after You had left for God's Kingdom, a few months later, when Mom received a request by Aunty Laura to add her as a friend on your facebook that she discovered Aunty Laura's second name is Maria.
Maria.
Ave Maria ...
It makes perfect sense now why Aunty Laura and Uncle Peter ...
When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be
Mother Mary had confined You to Her territory when we arrived in Lourdes and extended our 5 day stay to 25 days. She appointed very specific angels to help us on our faith journey in Lourdes, in accordance to Her Son's Plans. We will never, ever forget our time with You at Our Lady's Grotto last September 2009. It was a very special time.
A pilgrimage to be remembered forever.
Time of Posting : Tuesday 16/11 @ 11:37am
