Lift Accident

Yesterday was a no-school day for the 2 boys. After they woke up in the morning, MIL, the boys & me prepared to go to market for breakfast.

As usual, I was the last to get out of the house. While I was struggling to lock the main gate, the lift door opened. The lift is just 10 steps away from my door step. Aron, being closest to the lift just walked in, taking for granted that everyone else will follow right behind him. In actual fact, Asher turned back to check if we were ready, MIL was about 5 steps away, and me still struggling with the stupid lock at my door.

All of a sudden, the lift door started to close, with only Aron inside. MIL, in the panic, ran to the lift, but only use her finger to press on the lift buttons. The door didn't get to open again. From the glass window of the lift, we could see the lift started to move upwards. Asher burst into tears and cried hysterically, while MIL keep repeating "Chaam loh, chaam loh, chaam loh, Aron sure will be frightened to death", and continuously pressing on the up and down buttons. At that moment, my eyes were glued to the number screen, trying to see which floor the lift was moving to. While I looked calm enough on the surface, my mind was actually flashing with many scenerios. There were 21 storeys in my block. What if the lift went up to the top and stopped there? What if the lift came down again to my floor, but Aron wasn't inside. The number on the screen keep going up - from 9 to 10 to 11 to 12. Finally, the number stopped changing. For that few seconds, when the number remained at 12, I was praying that Aron would just stay in the lift, and someone would walk in and give him some comfort. For a moment, I could hear Aron's crying from a distant, but just felt helpless.

As the number started changing again, from 12 to 11 to 10 and finally to 9, the lift stopped. The door opened this time, with my poor traumatised Aron crying sympathetically at one corner. I felt so relieved. As we walked into the lift, I saw a familiar face smiling to me, it was the ka lang guni man whom I greeted very often. He is a friendly man who lives on the 12th storey. I have asked my boys to say hello to him a couple of times. In front of him, was a trolley half loaded with things. He said he recognised Aron. Usually, when he met us on the 1st storey with full load of things, he will not enter the lift, he will humbly said he can wait for the next lift. While the 2 boys still crying noisily, I repeated "thank you" to him a few times.

Well, I knew this incident is going to happen at some point of time. There were a few times when the boys rushed into the lift without waiting for the adults. Everytime, when such "danger" happened, I managed to put my bare arms in-between the doors, or I would stepped in-between and used my entire body to stop the doors from closing. I don't trust the lift buttons during those emergencies. I had warned the boys a couple of times that they have to wait for the adults to go into the lift together. I had also told them what to do in-case such "accident" happen, that they should take the lift either to 9th floor or 1st floor and wait. But children usually won't take the advice even if you have mentioned it a thousand times. So, maybe it is good to let them learn the lesson through hard ways.

As the boys cooled down, I started to ask Asher why he was crying so badly when he wasn't even "trapped" in the lift. He replied that he was afraid that Aron will go missing and he will lose Aron. Then I said, if that is the case, he will not have to share his toys with anyone and will not need to fight with anyone, wouldn't that be nice. He shooked his head and said he loves Aron. My heart melted. I turned to Aron and told him how much Kor Kor had cried for him and how much Kor Kor loves him, and I asked him to go and give Kor Kor a hug. He did what I said. Then they both laughed.