'She's my angel' - Scarborough girl returns lost wallet

Staying in touch 

Ra Rim, center, a Cambodian immigrant who lives in Westbrook, dropped a purse containing more than $4,000 in cash and jewelry, which she thought was lost forever. However, Abbie Jacobson, 8, of Scarborough, had other ideas. Jacobson and her mom tracked down Rim with the help of Rim’s daughter, Chansantha Meas, right, and returned the items. “She makes me believe that there are good people,” Rim said of the 8-year-old. (Photos by Rich Obrey)

Posted: Wednesday, August 29, 2012

By Duke Harrington dharrington@keepmecurrent.com
 

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 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 an English as a Second Language 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.