SCARBOROUGH — A Westbrook woman has just returned from a visit
to her Cambodian homeland, a trip she says she could not have made without the
help of an 8-year-old girl from Scarborough.
Last week, that woman, Ra Rim, 61, met with the
young girl, Abbie Jacobson and, with tears welling in her eyes, thanked her for
all she had done. What she had done was to simply be honest, but that simple
act was enough, Rim said, to bolster her love and appreciation for her adoptive
country.
“She is my angel,” said Rim, speaking though her
daughter, Chansatha Meas, who acted as interpreter. “She makes me believe that
there are good people.”
“I am so impressed by her,” said Meas, a nursing
student at Southern Maine Community College, who also could not hold back the
tears. “It’s hard to believe that people like this really exist in the world.”
The story began in late April. That’s when
Jacobson visited the Sam’s Club in Scarborough with her parents, John and
Jennifer Jacobson. She stayed in the vehicle with her father, but soon decided
she wanted to join her mother inside. Why crossing the parking lot with her
dad, Jacobson saw something fall to the ground behind a woman walking several
paces ahead of her. She also saw several pieces of paper flutter from the
object.
When she got to the closer, Jacobson saw that
the object was a small, silken purse, light turquoise in color, with its zipper
open. The items flitting away from it, as it turns out, were $100 bills. In
all, the purse contained a jeweled bracelet, two rings, some Cambodian money she
didn’t recognize, and $4,000 that she certainly did.
“No way,” she exclaimed with wide eyes, when
asked if she had ever seen that much money in one place before.
But rather than pocket even one of the bills,
Jacobson immediately declared the owner had to be found.
“I just wanted to find who it belonged to and
return it,” she said. “I knew it was somebody else’s and I knew I wouldn’t want
to lose that.”
“She didn’t even hesitate,” said Jacobson’s
still-amazed mother, Jennifer. “As soon as I saw it, I couldn’t help myself –
it’s just human nature I guess – but I spent it 10 times in 30 seconds in my
mind, but she was just so sad that somebody had lost all that money.”
Jacobson says she learned about honesty and
caring “at home and at school and stuff.” But what she had not yet learned,
what she could not possibly imagine, was the life experience of the person whom
she hoped to find.
Rosemarie De Angelis, a South Portland resident
and city councilor, first met Chansatha Meas as her ESL instructor when the
young woman first emigrated to the U.S. six years ago. The two have remained
close, fostering several subsequent SMCC classes into a personal friendship.
When De Angelis, a strong advocate for immigrants, learned last week from Meas
of Jacobson’s kindness, she was so touched she urged the family to go public
with the story.
It’s a story not only of a young girl doing the
right thing, but of the life-affirming impact it had on a stranger to these
shores, who has previously known hardships few could imagine.
“It’s worth noting that Chansatha’s parents were
in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge,” said De Angelis, referring to
Cambodia’s ruling genocidal regime of the mid- to late-1970s. “They’ve survived
incredible things, lived in hiding, saw great trauma, experienced the worst of
the worst, and finally made it to the United States themselves just two years
ago.”
These two years have not been enough to
countermand a lifetime of experience, and Rim says she was certain her money
and jewelry were gone forever.
“I only knew that if this had happened in
Cambodia, that would have been it,” she said. “I never would have got it back.”
Rim discovered her loss later that evening. When
getting undressed for the night, she realized that the pocket of her
undershirt, where she kept her purse, was empty.
“I was so shocked,” she said. “I felt like I had
no energy at all, because that was all the money I had saved. I had no hope of
ever getting it back.”
Adding to the sense of deflation, Rim was
scheduled to make a return trip to her homeland in just two days. She had saved
for the sojourn by packing sea urchins at the plant in Scarborough owned by
another daughter.
“I was sick all that night over it,” said Rim.
Meanwhile, the Jacobsons also were having a late
night.
“I couldn’t sleep I was so worried over it,”
said the mom.
Inside Rim’s purse, the Jacobsons also found her
debit card. Recognizing the name embossed on it as Asian, but not knowing if it
belonged to a man or a woman, they had tried making inquires of customers at
Sam’s Club. One person they spoke to, the Jacobsons later learned, was Meas’
brother, but the family could not make themselves understood, due to the
language barrier.
The family turned the purse over to Scarborough
police, but Jennifer Jacobson lay awake that night.
“I was so sick in my heart,” she said,
“especially because of how Abbie was feeling. She’s the only who wants everyone
to get along and play. She has the biggest, most genuine heart I have ever
seen.”
Afraid a foreign national would not know to make
a missing item report to police – which Meas confirmed was exactly the case
– Jacobson called the credit union of the debit card to explain what
happened, and to ask if they could call Ra Rim, if they had such a person in
their customer database.
They did, and Meas called Jennifer Jacobson
later that day on behalf of her mother, allowing the long saved-for trip to
take place after all.
“I never believed there were people like Abbie
who existed in the world,” said Rim. “This experience has encouraged me to feel
more like this is my home, too.”
For her part, Jacobson shrugs off being cast in
the role of ambassador for her country. Instead, she said, “I was just happy to
meet her [Rim] and happy that she got her money back.”
Her greatest reward, says Jacobson, is to have
subsequently made friends with Rim and her family. The families have met a few
times, and she looks forward to learning more about Cambodia and learning its
language.
She is not, however, anxious to try the
Cambodian cuisine, visibly blanching last week at the thought.
“Somebody told her they eat bugs,” explained her
mother.
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