Yesterday I enjoyed a beautiful high tea at the E&O Hotel. The setting and service were immaculate as always, the sandwiches dainty, the cakes scrumptious, and the tea deliciously refreshing. Nothing particularly out of the way about that you might think but the other guests were a bit of a surprise. Arriving in wheelchairs, and with one lady over ninety years old and another person unable to eat but wanting to take part in the occasion nonetheless, they were people I had never met before but was very privileged to sit with. They were patients from the Pure Lotus Hospice in Penang, which has been set up to care for terminally ill people. Well, I suppose we’re all terminal as there’s nothing more certain than death but everyone on this group had been given a diagnosis of cancer and the Hospice is the place where they were going to spend their final days. It might sound like a melancholy tea party but it wasn’t at all as these people and their carers – most of whom were volunteers – were full of quiet joy and immense dignity.

It was humbling to hear the founder and director of the Hospice, the Venerable Lyan Shih, speak about the experiences of the patients. One had told her, “I arrived a lonely, frightened man. After a few days settling in, I began to feel calmer. I had come to a place where people took the time to listen, where the staff genuinely care about me and not just about my illness. I didn’t feel lonely any longer … for the first time in my adult life I felt I belonged and was loved.” My sadness was for the fact that this gentleman had spent so much of his life – as so many of us do – feeling lonely and unloved. In fact loneliness is now considered as great a health risk as smoking or obesity. And it’s not really surprising as we are, like all mammals, hard-wired to attach to other members of our species and to live in social groups. Modern life with its stress on isolation, independence, and productivity has tended to ignore this simple fact.

The Pure Lotus Hospice is trying to extend its capacity with a new building so as to offer this level of care to more people. Although it’s by no means the only hospice in Penang, the need is great and growing. A four storey building is planned which will have forty beds. It’s in Jalan Utama, and close to Penang’s venerable General Hospital so that patients will be able to attend their hospital appointments easily. At present care is only offered to Malaysians – or those married to Malaysians. It may be that as the MM2H population grows older the expat community in Penang will have to think of setting up some sort of facility of its own. This is particularly important when you bear in mind that an ageing expat couple or single person probably won’t have family close by.

The modern hospice movement which began in England fifty years ago with the pioneering work of Dame Cicely Saunders has spread out all over the World. She recognised that dying people needed not only medical care and excellent pain control but compassion and acknowledgement of their uniqueness as a human being. Another outstanding individual who exemplified this outlook was Mother Teresa whose work amongst the destitute and dying in Calcutta is legendary. Once when during the Vietnam War she was asked if she would go on an anti-war demonstration, she replied, “No, but when you organise a march for Peace, I’ll be there.”

And there’s a vital point here. It’s easy to say what’s wrong with the world. In every country, in every place, there are things that could be better. And yet by focusing on the negative, we rarely make things better. It may be better to take a leaf out of Mother Teresa’s book and be actively for the positive rather than angrily against the negative. This was one of the reasons why I was so delighted to be a guest at this rather special tea party. It reminded me that while the global system is pretty broken, the human spirit isn’t. The pure land, of course, is a reference to the celestial realm of a Buddha or Bodhisattva in the Eastern tradition. The West also has similar ideas – Heaven, Paradise, Utopia, you name it. In any case it’s far beyond Planet Earth. But when we reach out and help others, recognising our own flawed natures, we have a chance to grow beyond the shells and masks we enclose ourselves in. And even at the end of our lives we may have the chance to find the love and the care that we hunger for. This is what the aunties and uncles of the Pure Lotus Hospice taught me.