The End of the Road

I don’t know why I’m embarking on this story with such a finale of a heading considering that I just started a bright and new chapter in my life. This piece I will caution has nothing to do with my most recent blog entry, and the road I’m writing about is on the other side of the practical, so to speak.

This can’t be a smoke-choked “thanon” in Bangkok that is perennially blocked by the noisy traffic, neither is it the breezy mountain paths that I relish trekking in my visits to the villages. Figuratively, I started walking this road in search for a friend and fraternity brother when I came to Thailand a little over two years ago. This guy - a friendly Thai, and I, enrolled in the same class of 85 doctor-hopefuls [hopefools] in my first year at Medical School some 30 years ago, and we were on the same boat through all the demanding and bittersweet four years of mastering the processes in the human body.

He and I were in the same batch that went through the whacking and humiliation that fraternity neophytes have to endure to be able to paddle the next batch of greenhorns. I can’t recall all the exams, hospital rounds and beach beer parties that went between us, but what I will never forget was his friendliness and the stick of cigarette that was perpetually anchored between his lips… a pack and a half a day, I reckon.

After graduation our class parted ways and I never heard of him ever since. Two years ago we migrated to Thailand when my two children and wife were invited to staff the international department of Yanhee Hospital in Bangkok. Realizing that this was my chance to reconnect with Preecha Karnjanabhant I set out to find him with an old address that I found in our fraternity records. This search took me through the Internet, Post office, Telephone directories, etc, but not being able to speak or read Thai, I was at a loss with the other possibilities that could have led me to him.

Two years went by and I forgot frère Preecha, but a week ago he pops back into my memory and I am inspired to resume my walk on this road. My son’s Thai fiancé – Nok, was more than willing to help me, and after a few searches in the Internet she was on the phone to his clinic. Nok’s phone call was answered by a lady - Preecha’s secretary, who said that my friend was not in his office because he was recuperating from a surgery on his larynx, and she advised Nok to leave my name so that she could inform her boss about me. Four days pass and the secretary calls, only to inform me that Preecha was in Wat Khrueawan – a Buddhist temple, waiting to be cremated in seven days.

What would you do when you have been searching for years for a long lost friend only to locate him in his final moments at the threshold of death, and get to see him – a cold and decaying cadaver? The news shocked me and I was at a loss of an immediate reaction. This could have been the end of my walk on this road but I couldn’t stop until I saw that it really was him inside the casket.

After securing the address of Wat Khrueawan from Preecha’s secretary, I set out one afternoon on the last mile of this now gloomy road with a book of our fraternity showing pictures of Preecha and me in a group pose – for identification. The weather was cooperating too by threatening to pour in any minute. One predicament I had aside from the eminent downpour was the numerous temples in the area that Wat Khrueawan was located and I didn’t exactly know which one had Preecha. 

I was in the second one after a futile search of the first, when it started to rain. I mean really raining reincarnated cats and dogs as it only can in Bangkok. The gracious caretaker of the Wat invited me into a hall where prayers were being offered by four monks for a dead lady who was in a casket while her relatives – and I, were seated facing the monks. All of them had her hands by the chest in a prayer position except – conspicuously me. I could imagine the questions that they were entertaining in their minds regarding this handsome stranger, but I behaved through the prayers and even accepted the drinks that they served.

Providentially, before the clock struck 9 the prayers ended, and before they had the chance to ask me some questions [in Thai] the rain slowed down to a drizzle, and made it possible for me to make a mad dash for the next Wat, which was flooded. So I decided to head back home instead of wading in. I knew that there were about three or four more Wats in that area, and decided to tackle them the next day.

The following day after work, I immediately took off with hopes that this would be the last few meters of this “road.” The bus stop that I chose to get off was near a large Wat with a sprawling compound, and I silently went about inspecting the different buildings. I approached a gentleman who was well dressed and who looked like he could speak English, and asked if  there was a dead guy named Preecha in this Wat. He spoke good English and said that he was Preecha’s cousin and wasted no time in introducing me to Preecha’s family.

I didn’t get to see my buddy since he was incarcerated inside a sealed casket. But the positive response of his family and the whole group of mourners who treated me like I was their long lost son, made my long and almost futile search worthwhile. I was told that Preecha was conscious of my presence, and that my visit made him happy as he moved on to another level in the Buddhist chain of reincarnations. I just hope that in his next life he would be the King of Thailand. Long live the king!