Three months ago, Annie Mok found a wallet on the street and returned it to its owner – a young girl.
The wallet was full of personal items, cash and cards and Mok knew that its young owner would have been worried over its loss. So she contacted and met her to return the wallet. The grateful girl offered Mok a token of appreciation which she graciously declined.
As they say, no good deed goes unrewarded.
This week, on Tuesday night, Mok found herself in a similar predicament. She had dropped her wallet at Telok Blangah Crescent Food Centre, near her home, and left without realising it.
But a cleaner at the hawker centre would emerge as the hero, as Mok wrote later in a Facebook post: “A cleaner uncle picked it up while he was clearing plates for the last round before he ended his working day. He waited for me at the hawker [centre] until very late, thinking I would go back to the same place to find my lost wallet, but I didn’t (as I didn’t realise I had lost my wallet).”
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While other civic-minded folks may have opted to drop the wallet off at the nearest police post or left it with the hawker centre’s management, the elderly cleaner decided to go the extra mile.
Mok wrote: “Worrying I would go and make a police report, cancel my credit cards and go through all the tedious process [when you lose your wallet], he decided to send it back to me first thing in the morning.”
Her wallet contained $300 in cash, a gold ring, credit cards and her identity card.
The uncle’s integrity and kindness touched Mok deeply.
She wrote: “I am so grateful to what he had done for me. I am so lucky that he was the one who picked my wallet and not anyone else. I was touched by his kindness, and bowed to him many times. No words can express my thanks and gratitude to him.”
She offered the elderly cleaner a token of appreciation , but he rejected it with a smile. Likewise, he declined to give her his name.
He told her that all he hoped for was that Mok would stop to say hi the next time she visited the hawker centre and saw him there.
Struck by his response, Mok decided to share his good deed on social media.
She wrote: “A great man is always willing to (receive) little and never expects anything in return for what he did (for) others. This post is to recognize this great man for his honesty and his kindness.
“If you cannot find faith in humanity, be the faith in humanity. And karma does exist. Thank you uncle.”