My Paradise...
When I heard that you love Northern Thailand, I knew I must share
this story with you. I will try to make it brief. A few years ago,
my retired uncle, Bill, was traveling to Asia for the first time. He
was staying in Bangkok waiting the okay to travel into Vietnam when
he met a Brit who asked if he would like to go on a safari through
Northern Thailand. Having no set schedule and a love for adventure,
my uncle
readily agreed. They traveled the many hours north and Bill was left
in a small village where only one person knew a tiny amount of
English while his new friend went off to get the elephants scheduled.
As he was leaving,. the Brit mentioned that the village had purchased
building materials and would Bill mind helping them construct their
new house. Bill had shared his experience as a builder and architect
with the man while getting to know each other in Bangkok. Not
realizing yet that he had been shanghaied for this express reason, he
agreed to assist these people. Needless to say, the safari never
happened, but my uncle found a new home. As a result of this
experience, Bill fell in love with the area, but especially with the
children. When he came back from the East, he was a changed man. He
set up a fund for the school in the village to help pay for milk and
basic supplies. His goal was $5,000. Before he went back,
he had raised almost $10,000. To make this whole situation truly
melancholy, his mother died one week before he was scheduled to fly
back to Thailand. He went as scheduled. It was where is heart was.
Why, you ask, is he not writing this story? Last August he was
diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer. Faced with the choice of
a long fight for a few extra months of living in pain or traveling to
Thailand to say goodbye, he of course chose to travel. He stayed
there for two months and when he returned on Christmas Eve, he was
given two weeks to live. He died yesterday, 2/4/00 at the age of 63.
My paradise is my grandmother's cabin in central New Hampshire on
Lake Wentworth. Many summer days were spent there with the whole
family. I have wonderful memories of my uncle and I sitting on the
porch, listening to the loons and the waves lapping the shore,
sharing stories and laughing. I have always believed that cabin to
be Heaven on Earth.
Tobie
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