Recently, one of my best friends, whom I’ve shared just about everything with since the first day of kindergarten, spent the weekend with me. Since I moved to a new town several years ago, we’ve both always looked forward to the few times a year when we can see each other.

Over the weekend, we spent hours and hours, staying up late into the night, talking about the people she was hanging around with. She started telling me stories about her new boyfriend, about how he experimented with drugs and was into other self-destructive behavior. I was blown away! She told me how she had been lying to her parents about where she was going and even stealing out to see this guy because they didn’t want her around him. No matter how hard I tried to tell her that she deserved better, she didn’t believe me. Her self-respect seemed to have disappeared.

I tried to convince her that she was ruining her future and heading for big trouble. I felt like I was getting nowhere. I just couldn’t believe that she really thought it was acceptable to hang with a bunch of losers, especially her boyfriend.

By the time she left, I was really worried about her and exhausted by the experience. It had been so frustrating, I had come close to telling her several times during the weekend that maybe we had just grown too far apart to continue our friendship，but I didn’t. I put the power of friendship to the ultimate test. We’d been friends for far too long. I had to hope that she valued me enough to know that I was trying to save her from hurting herself. I wanted to believe that our friendship could conquer anything.

A few days later, she called to say that she had thought long and hard about our conversation, and then she told me that she had broken up with her boyfriend. I just listened on the other end of the phone with tears of joy running down my face. It was one of the truly rewarding moments in my life. Never had I been so proud of a friend.

Last Monday, I visited Jalan Besar to find a new fan blade for a standing fan that my daughters had broken.

I’d worked in the Jalan Besar area 30 years ago and remembered that there were lots of small hardware shops selling unusual things so I thought that I would have no problem finding a fan blade. However, after walking around for almost an hour, I found out that these shops were no longer around.

When I was ready to give up and go home, I spotted an old-fashioned hardware store. After being greeted by a woman, I explained my predicament. She immediately asked me to show her the broken blade. Out of nowhere, a man who looked to be in his 60s came out.

He asked to see the blade and then disappeared into the shop. He came back with a blade but it did not look the same as what I had in my hand. We compared the two blades and he said that it might work.

I asked him how much it was. He told me that he had taken the blade off an old fan that someone had brought in for repair. He said: “It didn’t cost me anything, so why should I charge you for it?” That really touched me. I took the blade home and it work perfectly! My daughters got a “new” fan for nothing.

When I told them this story, they were shocked as they are used to patronizing big modern shops where everything is transactional and the employees go strictly by the book. Not so much my wife. She is almost in her 60s, and said this reminded her of the kind aunties and uncles who used to run small shops and were always ready to help others when she was growing up.

Two-time cancer survivor Tracy Pepper has developed an unlikely friendship — with a beautiful butterfly, which she called Fluffy.

Ms. Pepper found Fluffy in her garden struggling for life soon after birth. After feeding it on honey from a sunflower, Fluffy recovered but didn’t regain the use of its wings and has remained with Ms. Pepper ever since.

She has been recording the experience on social media. In one post, she wrote, “I’m the crazy butterfly lady! I just spent 3 hours playing with him, exercising him by walking him up and down my fingers and arms, feeding him and even giving him the feeling of flying! He sat on my hand and beat his wings as I moved my hand up and down pretending he was flying!”

Ms. Pepper said it was sympathy and empathy that drove her. After battling against cancer twice and keeping herself busy with aid work in Africa, she fell into a “depression” last year.

“When I found him helpless and unable to fly, I knew just how he felt. I went through burn-out last year. I wanted to give up… I felt really lonely.”

So she decided to help the insect, to which she has become attached. Ms. Pepper even advertised tickets of internationally-famous Cirque du Soleil’s act she had for sale because she thought staying at home to care for Fluffy was more important.

Unfortunately, Fluffy wouldn’t be around for long — the lifespan of a butterfly ranges from two to six weeks.

But she seemed to care little about it. She wrote on Facebook, “He has a wonderful life and when his time comes, he will die flat and happy and very very loved.”