Second Chance

I needed to come back and use the internet, so thought I'd take the opportunity to write another, slightly better entry. Firstly though, I'd like people to acknowledge that they are reading this, make a comment, etc... I just like to know that people are interested in what we are doing, and stuff!

Back to the catch-up. Yesterday we were walking along the Mekong, when was spotted Cat. He was the old Aussie hippie we'd met at TT Guest house just before we left to move above the office. We paused a moment, he was hard-work to talk to, mumbling often, drifting away from us and onto another plane in-between. It was only a brief pause, a pause all the same. We moved forward and greeted him. He looked lost, and not just lost in teh 'lost person' kind of way I've discussed before. I mean he really looked out of it, lost in another place. A drifted back to us, and as his astral body reached us he spoke. "I've just found out my mother died." Slap!

I hate those moments, never no matter how many times you are in such a situation, you always clam-up. He cried and we stood there. You don't want to do the obvious, "Oh I'm soooo sorry!" No you're not, you've got nothing to be sorry for. So you just stand there silently, not moving, not breathing, the world on pause. I wanted to hug the old guy, but didn't feel I knew him enough, my Britishness had got the better of me. Within what felt like an age and was only a few seconds, he stretched out his arms. We all three embraced.

We took him for a juice and a chat. He explained she had been ill for some-time. I didn't enquire how old she was, as I didn't need to know. Cat is an old man, a true aging hippie, his mother must have been very old. It had been her time, and he acknowledged that. He worked through his grief with us, who else did he have?! This was by repeating the story of his one-true-love, we'd heard before. But on this occasion that was no problem.

He'd had a dream many many years ago. It started with him being really ill while in India. Weeks of the runs had sent him close to the point of death and he'd gone to visit the temple of the Hindu god of death Khali. While there he started to trip-out, started to have visions. Later on he feel asleep and had a dream of the temple pool, a naked woman swam a dance in the pool. When he woke he could remember every aspect of this woman, as if the experience had been real.

Years later he was at a political gathering in Australia when a woman caught his eye. In the briefest glimpse he knew this was the woman from his dreams. They talked for hours, became soul-mates, traveling the world together. Wandering through India bare-foot, partying in Thailand. It was Thailand where his world caved in on him. They were in Ko Pang-Gang (Not correct spelling, I know!), they'd been partying as people do in the southern islands of Thailand. Partying hard! They both went to bed, but only one of them woke up the next morning. Cat found his one-true-love dead beside him in bed, she'd died of a blood clot on the brain.

This story, told again, helped him put things in context over his mother. "She's still with you", I said. "Yes she is," Cat smiled, looked up and kissed the air. Tears of what looked like joy welled up in his eyes. "She's in many ways nearer to me now than she was before." We all smiled and the world was a much better place for a moment.