Den’s name first appeared on a list of children whose parents had been killed in the 2004 tsunami.
Officially there were 92 children — local Phangnga, Phuket and Krabi kids — whom the Thai government and Red Cross officials quickly identified and who mostly ended up in extended family care.
At the time I set up an unofficial foundation with my friend Neil Thompson at BEC-Tero with the purpose of sponsoring the education of some of these kids.
“How many do you want to sponsor?” my friend at the Education Ministry asked me when I called. She was in charge of scholarships for needy students and had the tsunami list.
I answered maybe five or six kids. She sent me a list of 20. “Choose the ones you want,” she said. How does one select five or six kids out of 20 mug shots of devastated newly orphaned kids? In the end we sponsored them all. One of those mug shots belonged to Den.
Den was 13 years old, halfway through Year 7 or Mathayom 1. His picture revealed a skinny little kid with big lips and droopy eyes. He was alone in the world except for a single living relative, an uncle who lived in a ramshackle aluminium shelter on a vacant block of land. The uncle had a job as a school janitor, earning around 8,000 baht a month. Den ended up living with him.
A benevolent school in Phuket, namely Satree Phuket, took Den under their wing. Between them, the uncle and Neil and I he managed to continue his education. Within a year he was topping his class with a GPA of 4.0.
I watched Den grow over the next four years via letters and photographs. The GPA remained intact, as did his tenure at the top of the class.
He was an avid correspondent. I still have the letter he wrote in M2 when he ordained as a novice monk over summer — the pic showed skinny, droopy-eyed Den with over-sized saffron robes hanging off rake-thin shoulders.
By the time M4 came around those 20 students had slowly whittled down by half. Some got pregnant and dropped out of school. One or two of the boys lost interest in education. Others got jobs. But for a handful of them, they took the opportunity and ran like hell, heading straight for Year 12 and university or technical colleges. And Den was leading the field.
I didn’t meet any of them in person until 2008, when Den was in Year 11. I had a speaking engagement in Phuket town. It was my first chance to meet these kids.
“Make sure Den is there,” I told my secretary making all the arrangements. Via snapshots and mugshots, I had watched Den grow from a skinny, droopy-eyed 12 year old into a skinny, droopy-eyed 16 year old.
Just days before I left for Phuket, I received a letter from Den.
“Loong Andrew, I need to talk to you in private. There is something I have to tell you,” he said. That concerned me, and not just because Loong is an honorific meaning “Old Uncle” — the more youthful Na, or “Young Hip Uncle”, would have comforted me a little more.
On the day I met the kids, Den was subdued. He looked exactly like he did in his photos, if not a little skinnier in real life, but he wasn’t his usual fun self that seeped through the pages of his letters. The group meeting with the students went really well, and I gave them my informal speech about being diligent in studies and never giving up (I call it my “Dodging The Lightning Bolt” speech for obvious reasons).
At the end everybody left but Den hung around.
The kid’s hands were shaking. I assumed it was because he was nervous to meet such a mega-celebrity as myself, but I was wrong, not to mention full of myself.
“I have something I must tell you that has made me feel bad for a long time,” he said.
He paused. “This is difficult for me to say, but I will say it.” He swallowed, and I deliberately kept silent until he finally said what was on his mind.
“My parents didn’t die in the tsunami.”
There was more silence as Den clearly searched for the words to say.
“My father contracted HIV, then passed it onto my mother. They both died of Aids around the same time, days before the tsunami hit Phuket. Somehow my name was added to the list of orphans.”
Immediately my heart went out to this kid, imagining the pain of watching one’s parents die in rapid succession, being left alone in the world, then holding this information close to one’s heart for four years.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Sorry for what? I explained that I didn’t care how his parent died, and to this day I can’t think which death would be more devastating — tsunami or Aids — or if indeed, the emotion experienced over the loss of one’s parents at such an early age could be ranked from best to worst.
Instead I asked him what he wanted to be when he finished school.
“A doctor,” he said.
“Then concentrate on that. I don’t care how your parents died. Just be as diligent — and frugal — as you possibly can.”
And that is what he did.
Den finished Grade 12 and got into the Faculty of Medicine at Prince of Songkla University in Hat Yai. It was around the time I opened a branch of my language school in Hat Yai so I got to see him more regularly.
Well, not that much more regularly. He was forever studying or doing intern work at local hospitals. He got skinnier and skinnier; the first time I saw him in uniform, his trousers were probably three sizes too big for him. “They fitted when I arrived,” he said apologetically.
Once I called him at 10am and he told me he had just finished his shift in the Emergency Ward at a Hat Yai Hospital.
“What time did the shift start?” I asked.
“10am,” he answered.
“I said start, not finish.”
“10am. It started at 10am yesterday. It’s OK; I got 45 minutes sleep around 2am.”
And his frugality sometimes bordered on the ridiculous.
“I have to buy a stethoscope, and they are selling them for 3,000 baht, but one of the seniors has a second-hand one which is quite old but it still works and will only cost 800 baht. Could I borrow 750 baht to buy it? I have 50 baht saved up of my own.” Needless to say, Neil and I went halves on the new one.
Time marches on, and last Tuesday, May 17, 2016, 11 and a half years after the tsunami, I received a phone call.
“Loong Andrew, it’s me, Den. The university just announced its medical graduates this morning.” He took a deep breath. “I graduated with first-class honours. I’m … a doctor!”
Den already has a job. He starts work June 1 at one of Hat Yai’s bigger hospitals. He’s going to spend another four years working and studying so that he can specialise in medicine.
I have told him Neil and I want nothing in return for our sponsoring his studies, except for unlimited drug prescriptions for the rest of our lives, no questions asked.
But if you’re ever sick in Hat Yai and you’re attended to by a skinny doctor with droopy eyes and big lips, be nice to him. He probably hasn’t slept in 24 hours. Compliment him on his nice stethoscope. And admire this young man who, since the age of 12, has refused steadfast to allow anything to be an excuse not to get on with life. n
This source first appeared on Bangkok Post Lifestyle.