Death
Isn’t it strange how a lot of old people become sick, sometimes for a long time and then suddenly start to mend quite dramatically, only to die a week or two later? It’s as if all their energy is thrown into that last short period of life on Earth. Perhaps it’s so that they can leave a good impression on their loved ones or say goodbye to them.
I bring this up because I am listening to the wake tunes of a Buddhist friend’s mother a hundred yards up the road from the shop I’m sitting in having a beer and writing to you. She died like that, sick for ages, then up on her feet for a week, happy, laughing and joking, then whumpf! Both my parents went the same way, although less dramatically.
You may be asking yourself why I’m not there too. Well, the villagers know that my Thai is not good enough to follow the Buddhist proceedings, so they don’t invite me, and here, you don’t go to parties or wakes unless you’re invited. So, I’ll listen from not so afar.
I once remarked to my wife, that I couldn’t make up my mind whether Thai Buddhist death music was happy or sad, and she replied that it was supposed to be neither, because it was a happy occasion for the deceased, but a sad one for those who loved him or her.
That sounds about right to me, I think it’s how it should be.
Regular readers of these posts will remember that we have been going through a heatwave, well, that seems to be over. It rained last night, which always knocks the temperature down by 5-10 degrees, it rained this morning and it’s drizzling now, which seems quite appropriate; not that Thai rice farmers consider rain a bad thing and everyone up here is a Thai rice farmer or involved in it in one way or another.
All the best.
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