a letter to the folks in California from central Thailand

[tutsiwarrior]

well...this is the central Thailand forum...isn't it?

"...my wife's youngest brother died suddenly, TB, early 40s...he had been sick in hosp before but when I saw him last 2 months ago he looked OK...quite a shock, when he was healthy he was 'the picture' thereof...

his son, 6 y.o. died last month from the same, he stopped eating and withered...his wife died 18 months ago from a brain tumor...

my wife is under heavy sedation...she never called me to say anything; too broken up, I suppose...when they were little she useta take him to school with her as there was no one around to look after him...she said that she had to pack him on her back sometimes, they had a special bond...

I called his son Bubba because he was a little bruiser...he was my little pal, very affectionate which is unusual for thai children...

earlier, they all lived together with us in our house in town...the wife useta go with me to the market to help carry the vegetables...the brother was a farm worker and we were friendly...

life's a bitch in the SE Asia countryside where if you get sick, you die...all the money in the world ain't enough..."

[tutsiwarrior]

an email sent a few days later describing a day in the life in central Thailand...

'back in BKK now finishing the dental work then onward to work in saudi...things were pretty rough at home as I had described but the wife got the kids back to school the following Monday and things are settling down somewhat...

I just remembered a time about 10 years ago when I was together with her and her dead brother driving along a country road that runs between our little town and the provincial capital...we had an old diesel van that her oldest brother (still living) found at an auction in BKK that was being sold by the BKK Met. Trans. Auth. with over 100000km but still ran OK, later he and a pal rebuilt the engine with new main bearings, rods and pistons...

we were following a flatbed loaded with crates of fresh fish in water...it hit a bump then a good sized fish from a top crate flew out and landed on the road...what happened next was remarkable, the dead brother who was driving stopped the van and my wife, riding shotgun, jumped out and recovered the fish and got back in and we headed on down the road...took less than 10 seconds with not a word spoken, brother and sister were always on the same wavelength...

things were celebratory as we rode along, I was in the back and the wife held up the fish triumphantly and I said: 'pla! (fish)' and then she corrected me with gusto and said: 'plachon! (a particularly tasty local river fish)'...there was gonna be some good eatin' tonight...and we could buy all the fish that we wanted, the fact that we got it for free was gonna make it taste that much better...made me feel honored to be in attendance...

that was one my fondest memories of my wife and her family...now, there's a poignancy...'