Living with a Thai Girl ­ - Mar Noo

Mar Noo is, as Jing-Joe calls her, “My second mummy”.

As a baby from 0 - 1, her first year, Mar Noo spent many hours a day looking after Jing-Joe, and as Jing-Joe grew, in the village, Mar Noo was the woman Jing-Joe often turned too when she had a problem, or just wanted a cuddle, a voice that loved her without judgment.

As Jing-Joe said to me just a few months ago, “Mar Noo she love me so much, she my second mummy, and she never spank me, no matter I am bad, she just love me”.

Being a parent isn't easy, sometimes you have to be firm, spank a bum, but for a child, to have a friend, a refuge, who loves you regardless, is priceless.

From a 5 year old, to understand undiminished love, unconditional love, love requiring no return, that is a huge leap of faith, of trust, and was rewarded by the love given.

Mar Noo loved Jing Joe without a thought, without hesitation.

Now I know you are all thinking about an old, wrinkly woman in a village, and yes, Mar Noo did look like that, but old she was never. Just as my Aunt Ruth still giggles when I call her on the phone like a little girl, even though she's 90, Mar Noo is ageless, NO, she is forever young, and has all the optimism and spirit, of youth.

Her heart was forever young, I remember Big Dan's impressions when meeting her at the Thai ICT Show last year.

Big Dan: “Did you see that old silk weaver, she's everywhere! Every time I go for a walk to another booth, she's there, trying to get prizes, free stuff, the TV channels all keep interviewing her.”

And it's true, they did, she alone got more press hours than I did!

She wandered, her first time in Bangkok, her first time at a ICT show, from booth to booth, working out what was on offer, who had give-aways. And when the TV crews came by, seeing a genuine little lady from Issan, having a LOT of fun, they loved it.

And most importantly, it was the YOUTH channels that loved her the most, her enthusiasm, for technology she didn't understand, but knew was needed at her home.

Every trip to the village, and we make a lot each year, Jing-Joe would stop by Mar Noo's house as we cruised by on the motor bike, and say, “Daddy, I stay with Mar Noo, you come back for me later”.

Safe is a house, no, a home, you're welcome at any time, no matter what you did. Mar Noo was a constant in Jing-Joe's tiny little life, a woman of small stature, whose heart weighed more than my beer gut!

Most days, in the dry season, Mar Noo had a trade, selling Thai Spaghetti, as it's called, house to house.

A stop at our place would almost buy all her stock. We'd sit around, and I attach photo's, and eat the great food she's made, eat the sweets, watch her clean the plates so as to to feed more, and sell seconds.

And always, Jing-Joe, sitting beside her, HER Mar Noo, Jing Joe's “Other” mother, a woman she loved with unquestioning devotion, for the love Mar Noo showed her.

You may have already seen photo's of this tiny dynamo, at Song Krang we ate lunch every day from the daily food as Mar Noo sold us.

And every day Jing-Joe would sit beside her, Mar Noo was Jing-Joe's Mar, her mother, no one else's.

“She love me, no matter if I am naughty, she love me” was the only way I ever heard Jing-Joe describe Mar Noo. What an epitaph.

What more could a human want from another human?

To be loved unconditionally.

That is the truest form of love, Unconditional love, no rules, no obligations, just love, and yes I know I can't spell, but worthy of capitalization and exclamation!

How much I respect this woman, who stands 5 feet tall and 50 meters high, I can never say. Her fearless approach to life, as Big Dan and I saw in Bangkok, standing and interviewed by TV's, then walking off to find the latest free gadget, something she'd never use, but grab the chance to excel. Who has this fearless approach to life?

Mar Noo.

And so this week we received a phone call, and I'll be honest, I should have written this on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday, when she lay in hospital.

You see in the wet season, the farmers walk bare foot in the fields, and she is a tooler of soil, a farmer, a trade I'd be proud to have on my resume.

And in this season, they can get a disease, something a well shod man like me and my Blood-Stones fancy boots would never know.

A disease that comes from rats in the fields, enters the blood, still I don't know the name, but the victims lie in bed, fade, and die.

Mar Noo lay in the hospital Jing-Joe was born, and withered, a tiny body, not 40kgs at best and now a lot less, withering, fading and finally on Thursday, they prepared her for her funeral.

They covered her with a white funeral sheet, her daughter howled tears we could hear in Bangkok.

I am ashamed we could not tell Jing-Joe, each day we hoped for a miracle, knowing it would not come, we are not brave enough to tell her, we sat and awaited the final phone call.

And this is true, it seems bizarre, but needs to be seen in the context of the primitive care sometimes given in these rural hospitals.

She lay there, my little mighty mouse, my daughter's true love, Mar Noo lay there, covered head to toe, in a sheet for the dead, for an hour while the family grieved. They, the nurses, came back and prepared to inject her with formalin, to preserve her, as she was dead, and the daughter beside her howled tears to heaven and hell.

Now I don't know if anyone other than Mar Noo was listening, but her fingers twitched, that short fucking hardy bitch, she twitched her fingers, I so hope she gave the finger. She wasn't going, not now, she'd wait, she twitched her fingers, her daughter saw, stopped the injections, pulled back the sheet.

They breed them tough in Sakon Nakorn. They will die with dignity when their time comes, I've sat with fathers who die before me, from Pancreatic Cancer, that cuts me to watch for my own reasons. They die surrounded by their family and friends, and the odd farang.

“Fuck That” said Mar Noo, my time is not now, she showed the finger, twitched her hand.

If swearing offends you, don't stand close to death, it deserves to be sworn at, in that tiny heart of a tiny woman, lies love yet to be given. She was going NO WHERE BUT HOME, FUCK IF IT AIN'T ON THE AGENDA!

The first day after she lay paralyzed, on one side, unable to talk, I assumed a stroke, I feared a crippled body with her great heart that wanted to walk. But not our Mar Noo, second day, she's got her voice, she's got her arms and legs, and that heart, love it, it ain't gone just yet.

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