Final Exit In Isaan

This occurred on a visit to a friend’s family farm outside of Udon Thani, far into the Northeast, on my first trip to Thailand.

Walking along the dirt road that crossed the front of the family land one evening I saw someone at the home across the road, lying on a mat on the raised platform outside of the main house. Despite the heat and humidity they were covered to their chin with a sheet. A small black and white television on top of an old desk flickered with the snowy image of some comedy show while a teenaged girl sat nearby, looking at her feet. She looked sad.

Covered by the usual thatched roof that was held aloft by thick poles at each corner these open-sided living areas often serve as the centerpiece for socializing. I was used to seeing families use this platform area for eating and resting on a regular basis, but not this. Normally at this time of evening folks would be gathered to watch the TV, elbowing each other and laughing at the caricatured characters, but neither of them seemed aware of the katoey’s exaggerated shrieking coming from the TV any more than the rise and fall of the cicada’s song, wafting along on the warm night breeze.

My friend was sauntering along a few paces ahead of me and swinging a stick at the tall grass at the side of the road, not really acknowledging the somewhat unusual scene we’d just walked past. “Do you know those people?” I asked. “Yes, that my cousin,” he replied, softly. Sensing something really amiss now I probably ought to have let it drop, but I didn’t. “Does she have the flu?” He looked at me as though I had just asked the dumbest question in the world. Walking closer to me he leaned in and said “She have AIDS,” even more softly than before. “She dying. She want to be outside.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I began, but he cut in with “Don’t sorry.” Seeing my somewhat surprised reaction he added, matter-of-factly “It happen. It fate. It her time.” Rather than reveal yet another layer of my Western Ignorance of Thai Ways I shut my cakehole and we walked along a little farther, heading to the nearby reservoir that would become our regular destination on these evening walks.

“Some things can be avoided, you know,” I began, but thought better of it. My friend had already sat patiently through a couple of lectures on avoiding HIV, and this didn’t seem an appropriate time to preach a third. He caught the reference, though, and said “She get it from her husband, he go prostitute.” “Ah, I see,” I replied, no less sad at her grave condition. “Who will help take care of her family?” “All,” he said, again as if he were surprised I’d ask such a question. “Her husband can go to hell, we will take care her children.” Surprised by his “go to hell” comment I tried to hold back a laugh, but failed. He smiled a little sheepishly and said “Everyone know he bad man now.”

I looked back at the glow from the TV and the house lights that gave an indication of where his cousin lay on her mat, daughter at her side, waiting for the end of her life.

Four weeks later, it would come.

Passing a stand of trees we reached the edge of the reservoir and I gasped quietly, seeing a sea of lotus pads and blossoms stretching to the far side of the water, still adorned with jewels of raindrops from that afternoon’s brief but heavy tropical downpour. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was this very spot where I’d stand in a few months to say farewell to the spirit of a friend who would soon commit suicide, and again a couple of years later after my father’s passing. “I guess it was his time,” I would say to my friend, not needing to add anything more for him to understand and nod his head, coming to stand next to me and slip his small hand into mine while I wept.

This evening I stood stock still, mesmerized by the sight; watching dragon flies zig-zag and hover over the pads as if they were trying to connect the dots of raindrops, the drops themselves sparkling with the colors of the sunset. The breeze made the tall trees near us sigh with a whisper. The near-hypnotic drone of the cicadas and the distant lowing of cattle only added to the mystical quality of the moment. “It’s always somebody’s ‘time’,” I thought to myself, grateful that it wasn’t mine just yet. I took a deep breath, let it out slowly and felt at peace.