I am so blessed to have witnessed the depth and committment my parent have for each other, their marriage and their children. Comfort in life defined their regality and generosity. Adversity in life defined their courage and resiliency. When dad left his home from the northern province of Laos after high school, he had very specific goals in mind. He to wanted a college education, keep playing soccer and marry a beautiful girl.
Vientance is a capital of laos. As such it is the gateway to all cultural opportunity including the only post-secondary institution in the country. Every year, the city witnessed the influx of young people into the capital seeking employment and education. Dad came to the Vientance to study finance and to play soccer. There was no accomodations for the students at the college, all will need to find their own room and board. Dad ended up living and working with mom's aunt who owned a hardware store.
Dad maintained a very busy but meaningful schedule for himself. Consequently, his courtship life is very limited. He would attend classes, helped in the store and trained as needed with Lao soccer team. My mom and her older sister frequented the shop for various reasons. Dad's attraction for my mom was not immediate. Actually, he had a very strong attraction to my aunt. Mom's attraction to dad likewise is not immediate. In fact, she verbalized later on in their marriage that she didn't care for his type. My aunt would end up married another country boy who came to the capital to study nursing. They would later became parent to 10 children.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Mean While Back On The Ranch.
In my last posting, I have shared some of the wonderful family time and memory on our ranch along with some painful life lesson resulting from my foolishness. There was one incident that after all these years taught be a lesson about obedience and grace. This painful lesson again resulted from my foolishness and its consequence. It also gave me a glimpse into my father's love for his children and family.
One of the ponds that dad had dug to supply water for the ranch was quite deep but it was also wonderfully inviting for fishing. Dad had put up a barbwire fence to keep the animals and knuckle headed kids from going in there and hurt themselves. My brothers and I of course were the epiphany of knuckle heads. I volunteered to climb first over the fence. As I was near the top of this thing, I saw dad heading toward us. In my haste to escape, I lost my footing again. I slipped and fell. And as I fell toward the ground my right forearm was caught on one of the sharp pointing thing on the wire and it just sheared right into my flesh (imagine this in slow motion). The pain was indescribable. Once again, my dad came to rescue me (this theme would play and replay itself again and again over the course of his life). Recognizing that I was bleeding uncontrollably and in serious pain, dad did what he had to do as we were nowhere near any hospital or clinic. Dad resorted to drain gasoline from our jeep and poured that scorching liquid onto my arm in trying to halt the bleeding and possible infection. I screamed and screamed at him why was he hurting me. I truly felt it was a punishment for my disobedience.
The bleeding stopped. In the midst of my suffering and pain, I didn't noticed the tears in my dad's eyes. I didn't recognize the pain he had to endure. How many time in our lives when pain and suffering came to us, sometime as a consequence of our sin and the sin of others, we failed to recognize the undeniable truth that our heavenly father is so near to us.
One of the ponds that dad had dug to supply water for the ranch was quite deep but it was also wonderfully inviting for fishing. Dad had put up a barbwire fence to keep the animals and knuckle headed kids from going in there and hurt themselves. My brothers and I of course were the epiphany of knuckle heads. I volunteered to climb first over the fence. As I was near the top of this thing, I saw dad heading toward us. In my haste to escape, I lost my footing again. I slipped and fell. And as I fell toward the ground my right forearm was caught on one of the sharp pointing thing on the wire and it just sheared right into my flesh (imagine this in slow motion). The pain was indescribable. Once again, my dad came to rescue me (this theme would play and replay itself again and again over the course of his life). Recognizing that I was bleeding uncontrollably and in serious pain, dad did what he had to do as we were nowhere near any hospital or clinic. Dad resorted to drain gasoline from our jeep and poured that scorching liquid onto my arm in trying to halt the bleeding and possible infection. I screamed and screamed at him why was he hurting me. I truly felt it was a punishment for my disobedience.
The bleeding stopped. In the midst of my suffering and pain, I didn't noticed the tears in my dad's eyes. I didn't recognize the pain he had to endure. How many time in our lives when pain and suffering came to us, sometime as a consequence of our sin and the sin of others, we failed to recognize the undeniable truth that our heavenly father is so near to us.
 |
| Back Row: Thavisak and Thavisith (we wore hats as we had our head shaved to be pallbearers at our great aunt funeral. Front Row: KhingKham, Viratham, Phonethip, Monotham and Mom. This was at our main ranch where dad planted coconut trees, banana trees and other fruit trees. In the back ground was a pavilion overlooking the main pond. |
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Born With Golden Chopsticks In My Mouth (part 2)
Our family had in our possession number of ranches where we would spend our weekend. It seems like every year dad would purchased more land and built on it. I believed we were in possession of 4 ranches before the communist takeover. Dad shared later on that the ranches were to be passed on to us once we can demonstrated certain level of maturity about life and people.
Weekend at the ranches seemed to be relaxing for dad and mom in a laborous sense. Dad always had some type of projects going on whether digging ponds or plantings some kind of fruit. The first ranch that I can remember was the smallest of the 4. Dad planted mostly bananas and mango. We had house there but it hardly was used. The next three ranches are further up the dirt road and were connected. The second and the third seemed to have been purchased at the same time. Dad put up two more homes and hired a live in keeper on one of them to help with the managing the activities of the land and safe keeping. Knowing dad, the keeper must have been some lost soul who may have been the victim of his own foolishness in need of mercy and grace (That is one many qualities I always remember and respect about dad which was his generosity). The second and the third ranch had bananas, mango and yucca plants.
The fourth ranch was by far the biggest. It is my parents place of refuge. Dad built a fairly large home there along with storage barn and pens for his turkeys, pigs and water buffaloes. Additionally, dad had a big pond dug for fish and for watering our rice field (sticky rice). Another lived in keeper was hired on. All that I can remember about this gentleman was that he was single guy. He was blind in one eye. And he apparently was at one time a professional singer. He was always polite and smiling and never without some melody from his mouth. Uncle Phoukham was also hired on to stay on the ranch as well. All breeds of plants and fruits (pineapple, 5-6 type of mango, coconut etc.)were planted on this land in addition to the high volume of rice. Dad even ventured into growing his own orchid plants.
My siblings (thavisak, phonethip (1/4/2010), viratham, khinkham and manotham spent many, wonderful days here. We also learned learned many lesson here about biology and love. Dad always ensured that Tavi, Phonethip and I helped out whenever we were there. I remembered dad late one night took all of us children from the city out to the ranch so we can witness dad's priced pig give births. That was a first for us. There were many close call here as well for my and my brothers.
In one working incident, dad had asked me to use a wheel barrel to move some lose rocks from near the house somewhere else. In backing up with the barrel, I lost my footing and my grip on the handles. One of the handle shot up and back right into my right eye and cut my eye lid. Mom was livid at dad especially when dad told mom those rocks didn't need to be move but I needed to know how to work. Thanks dad. I remember when Tavi was stung by a poisonous scorpion, mom was livid at dad for that too. There was one painful incident that involved both myself and Phonethip. We were sword fighting as though our lives were depending on it. As we moved along in our battle we found ourselves separated by a group of banana tree. We charged right through the tree and disturbed a wasp nest the size of football (american football). Both of us were stung repeatedly by swarm of them mostly on our heads. Dad along with uncle phoukham charged over to drag us away. That was funny stuffs. No, mom wasn't there for this one.
Weekend at the ranches seemed to be relaxing for dad and mom in a laborous sense. Dad always had some type of projects going on whether digging ponds or plantings some kind of fruit. The first ranch that I can remember was the smallest of the 4. Dad planted mostly bananas and mango. We had house there but it hardly was used. The next three ranches are further up the dirt road and were connected. The second and the third seemed to have been purchased at the same time. Dad put up two more homes and hired a live in keeper on one of them to help with the managing the activities of the land and safe keeping. Knowing dad, the keeper must have been some lost soul who may have been the victim of his own foolishness in need of mercy and grace (That is one many qualities I always remember and respect about dad which was his generosity). The second and the third ranch had bananas, mango and yucca plants.
The fourth ranch was by far the biggest. It is my parents place of refuge. Dad built a fairly large home there along with storage barn and pens for his turkeys, pigs and water buffaloes. Additionally, dad had a big pond dug for fish and for watering our rice field (sticky rice). Another lived in keeper was hired on. All that I can remember about this gentleman was that he was single guy. He was blind in one eye. And he apparently was at one time a professional singer. He was always polite and smiling and never without some melody from his mouth. Uncle Phoukham was also hired on to stay on the ranch as well. All breeds of plants and fruits (pineapple, 5-6 type of mango, coconut etc.)were planted on this land in addition to the high volume of rice. Dad even ventured into growing his own orchid plants.
My siblings (thavisak, phonethip (1/4/2010), viratham, khinkham and manotham spent many, wonderful days here. We also learned learned many lesson here about biology and love. Dad always ensured that Tavi, Phonethip and I helped out whenever we were there. I remembered dad late one night took all of us children from the city out to the ranch so we can witness dad's priced pig give births. That was a first for us. There were many close call here as well for my and my brothers.
In one working incident, dad had asked me to use a wheel barrel to move some lose rocks from near the house somewhere else. In backing up with the barrel, I lost my footing and my grip on the handles. One of the handle shot up and back right into my right eye and cut my eye lid. Mom was livid at dad especially when dad told mom those rocks didn't need to be move but I needed to know how to work. Thanks dad. I remember when Tavi was stung by a poisonous scorpion, mom was livid at dad for that too. There was one painful incident that involved both myself and Phonethip. We were sword fighting as though our lives were depending on it. As we moved along in our battle we found ourselves separated by a group of banana tree. We charged right through the tree and disturbed a wasp nest the size of football (american football). Both of us were stung repeatedly by swarm of them mostly on our heads. Dad along with uncle phoukham charged over to drag us away. That was funny stuffs. No, mom wasn't there for this one.
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