The Angel of Bang Kwang Prison (8 page)

My happiness at this time was increased considerably when I soon found out I was pregnant. I had been dying to have a baby ever since I was a child myself. I guess adopted people never lose that desire to be completely related to someone else, especially, if like myself, the birth parents are never found or they reject you a second time. I knew instantly the moment it happened; it was a beautiful summer’s day outside his bedroom window and I knew we had just conceived a child—naturally I didn’t tell him that until it was official. We were having dinner with friends on Valentine’s Day and as he passed by me to get his guitar I whispered, ‘By the way I’m pregnant!’ It was mean of me, I know, but I did get a lot of fun out of watching him trying to act normal for the rest of the evening. He kept sneaking me looks of pure gladness—and, yes, a little shock—but I pretended not to see them, to prolong his agony. My parents were equally thrilled when I rang them with the news. They had met Niall in Thailand and had spoken to him on the phone many times and genuinely liked him.

It is not easy being pregnant during the Thai hot season. I suffered from morning sickness for the first few months but I couldn’t afford to rest up since there was so much work to be done. I felt nauseous, bloated, and dizzy, but had to keep going. I was practically living on orange juice full of honey and brewer’s yeast, which did help a little. Probably the most upsetting aspect was that I no longer wanted to eat any of my favourite foods; I couldn’t even look at a bowl of tomato soup, something I had loved since I was a kid. And as for liquorice—eugh! Thankfully, the second trimester was a lot easier. I was filled with a new energy, my hair was shiny, I was able to exercise and I ate really well for the baby. I felt and looked fabulous, even if I say so myself, despite starting to resemble a large bird with skinny limbs and a big round belly but with an enviable, blonde mane of glossy hair.

After five and a half months I started to work more from home but that doesn’t mean I slowed down or started sleeping until mid-day. I did a colossal amount of mail work; I was ministering a large amount of people and was also corresponding daily regarding a spiritual programme I had created, in Thai and English. Up to that point I continued visiting families, patients and drug addicts. I had always been careful about my own safety and hygiene but now I became strident in keeping my work clothes, and shoes, out of the house and would only eat the lunch I prepared for myself.

I had only ever wanted a girl for as long as I could remember, and I fervently hoped and prayed for a daughter. My prayers were duly answered when I underwent a scan and my tentative suspicions were confirmed.

A close friend called Nina was particularly good to me during my pregnancy and always made sure I ate well. She was originally from Bangkok but had been living in Changmai. She had recently returned to her home town and was sharing with some friends I knew. Then she ended up moving in to the big house with Niall, me and the other members. She was also a very devoted aid worker and was with me on many projects.

In the last few months she went that extra mile and made my breakfast every morning—cheese, egg and chilli on toast—absolutely delicious. I was also eating, in the third trimester, lots of home-made, healthy, peanut balls that were full of yeast, honey and milk powder. Although I wouldn’t like to know exactly how many calories there are in one I can heartily recommend them for their nutrients and nourishment. I put on about 18kg, which was fine by me. When I was at eight months, the doctors worried that I was too small to carry, and deliver, a full-term baby so I determined not to worry about calories or extra pounds. Anyway, I lost 11lb giving birth and the rest of the weight seemed to head to my breasts to feed the baby; I was like Dolly Parton for a few all-too-short months.

I had never really given much thought to the labour itself; it’s inevitable there will be one at the end of the nine months but you don’t need, or particularly want, to dwell on it. Anyway, I met lots of supportive, positive mothers, who reminded me that it would all be worth it in the end, and it’s not as bad as ‘they’ say, and that was good enough for me. I mean, I was vaguely aware that I wasn’t being told the full truth but I suppose it’s like an unspoken conspiracy so that first-time mothers don’t go out of their mind with worry.

She arrived a week early; it was 7.23am on the morning of Monday, 1 October when I gave birth to my beautiful little girl. She was 7.7lbs and I was in tears at the perfection of this little thing that had finally come out of me. I was going crazy and danced myself into labour on the Friday; that’s right, I actually danced like a mad woman demented by the full moon, with the intention of bringing on the labour early. Friday’s contractions disappeared all day Saturday before finally resuming on Sunday, whereupon they grew in size over the next 24 hours.

Things were happening at a snail’s pace on the Sunday evening but I refused to take anything to speed up the process. I had decided that I wanted a completely natural birth because I have always believed that that is the best thing for the baby. Perhaps it was still a throw back to my own birth and rejection but I wanted to be fully conscious and ready to welcome her the second she was out. My birth coach, Renee, had been preparing me for weeks on my breathing. During my early labour, she almost got left behind when I spent five hours speed walking around the hospital in order to outrun the contractions. I had really bad back pain, which I hadn’t expected, so I just kept moving because it hurt too much to stay still. This strength just flooded my body and I felt like running a marathon, at least until the bad contractions kicked in. I also didn’t want to be tied up in stirrups or even wear a hospital gown so I remained free and naked the whole time. Fortunately, the dear Thai attendant did an internal check to see how dilated I was and it turned out I wasn’t at all. She didn’t tell me this and instead sneaked in a bone-coloured crochet hook—well, that’s what it looked like to me—punctured the water-bag and whoosh, it was like a geyser. It was also a wonderful relief since the sudden gushing and pouring sped up the contractions and I immediately started to dilate rapidly.

When she finally arrived it was a bit frightening at first because she was blue and didn’t appear to be breathing. The chord had wrapped itself around her neck twice. Meanwhile, I nearly died myself when the doctor stuck his hand into me to fish around for some of the placenta that was refusing to come out. I screamed and screamed, and actually had my first non-drug-induced out of body experience. He was fortunate I was too weak to avenge my poor, wrecked vagina. I completely understood why women used to go off alone into the jungle or bush, dig a hole and just hang on to a stick or pole for support. My face was bruised from three hours of almighty pushing on my part but I can tell you truthfully that it was the best experience I have ever had on this planet. I bawled when she came out and immediately wanted another. It was utterly exhilarating. The pain, the tearing and the blood—I instantly wiped it clean from my mind at the sight of her.

Niall had spent the labour just outside the door, praying in the corridor. I knew he wouldn’t have the stomach to watch the delivery and didn’t want to be worrying about him as well as myself and the baby. During one of my speed-walking jaunts I ordered a breathless Renee to go and tell him to comb his hair because it was driving me absolutely nuts. It was comforting to find that my obsessive compulsive behaviour wasn’t intimidated by my being in labour! At one stage he fell asleep and I sent Renee out there to wake him up and inform him that he had better stay awake and keep praying. If I could have gone out myself I would have, if only to put the fear of God into him. Honestly, it was bad enough that he couldn’t physically share in the agony but I sure wasn’t going to have him blissfully asleep either.

He finally got to do his bit when they had to knock me out to retrieve that last piece of missing placenta. Renee remained with me while Niall took my newborn daughter Talya in his arms and sang to her.

A couple of days later, I was able to bring her home. It wasn’t easy for those first couple of months. I was working again—mad, I know—and the rest of the time I was either expressing milk or breast-feeding. Naturally, I managed to wear myself out and ended up having to use the bottle for Talya after I came down with several fevers and breast infections. I was anxious to get on with my life and be a mom and I think this happens to a lot of first-time mothers. The shock of labour is huge and can take a while to come to terms with; I don’t think I was fully right until a year after the birth. But there is another shock in store that isn’t as widely promoted as the pain of childbirth and that is the simple fact that having a baby is utterly life-changing. Some women, and I was one of them, believe that they can continue on with their previous life and goals, and that the baby won’t change them at all. I’m here to tell you that you may be able to control your man, your mother and even your best friend, but you cannot control a newborn baby.

All of my friends rallied around us when we got home. There was cake, ‘Welcome Home’ banners and lots of touching cards. Talya’s Thai godparents gave her a beautiful set of gold anklets that had bells on them so you could hear your baby kick when it was awake and later when it was older and discovering the joys of being mobile you could locate it by the tinkle of the little bells. Gold is a typical Asian gift; it’s perceived to be a practical and meaningful gift. The gold anklets proved to be extremely practical when, as a pre-teen, Talya cashed them in and was able to get herself lots of goodies like clothes and cds.

I was more tired than I ever remember. I was getting up at 4.30am to wash nappies between the early and late morning feeds. Then when she slept I would feverishly work until she woke. It never occurred to me to take it easy. I wish now that I hadn’t worked so much up to the birth. It would have been an act of supreme kindness if I had allowed myself to rest up for a couple of weeks before the birth; it would also have been completely out of character! Besides when I watched her learn to recognise my voice and then my face, and then learn to smile, I felt utterly rewarded.

When she was nine months old and the most bonny baby you could ever meet, my delighted parents came out to see her. It was the start of a beautiful relationship between them. It was thanks to my mother’s present of a baby name’s book during my pregnancy that I saw the name Talya, which was Hebrew and meant ‘gentle dew from Heaven’. To me she looked like a bean sprout or
tua-ngok
, as I used to call her in Thai, because she was so long and skinny. It was funny when I explained to one of my friends, a Singaporean doctor, what Talya meant and he thought I was saying ‘gentile Jew from Heaven.’

Niall was also busy with his work and friends urged me to support him in every way and not distract him from it, and I didn’t question their advice—advice which I find strange and intrusive now. He had a genuine love for people and believed in the healing, soothing power of music. He was passionate and ambitious about his work, as I was about mine, but maybe it’s true, that whole thing about women being better at multi-tasking. We can do our jobs and also keep working at our love life. For me I felt the romance fading quietly from the relationship and wanted to make the break before he did. We had made this one perfect thing, our daughter, and I felt that this was going to be as good as it was ever going to get, and I wanted more for me.

I wanted a life-long mate who was going to support me 100%, and need and respect, me and that just wasn’t happening anymore with us. It’s all a bit vague now when I look back and I feel that things might have been different had we been more open with one another. I felt disappointed that he didn’t fight more for us, but why would he when it looked like I had already made up my mind to separate from him? I had already been the pushy and aggressive one so why did I think he was going to change now? As far as I saw it, his work was more important and more fulfilling to him than I could ever be and I found myself wondering if I should release him to it.

We were so busy with our individual projects, and then I had Talya to feed, that I wasn’t able to defend our relationship and potential future against the doubts of my friends. A couple of our mutual friends sat me down for three hours one night and, in no uncertain terms, warned me that he would break my heart. Whether they were right or not I’ll never know because I wasn’t prepared to take the risk, but it would be wrong of me to blame them for my decision. At the end of the day I felt I wasn’t getting all that I wanted, and needed, so I cut my losses and moved on.

Ten years after we parted I found out that he had actually wanted us to stay together; he just never said it to me—though maybe I never asked. I’ve never been entirely confident that I made the right decision in breaking with him, but there is no point in dwelling on the ‘ifs’ and ‘might have beens’. We have always maintained a good friendship and he will always be Talya’s dad. Enough said.

Chapter Four

I wanted to start doing personal counselling at the hospitals in Bangkok because as with everything else I had been doing, I wanted to help those most in need. Our first big visit was to the Police Hospital and involved a Police General we knew who had cancer. One of his nephews was a friend of ours and he rang to ask would we go in. I went in with other volunteers; Nina, Michael, and one of my best friends, Maria. It wasn’t an easy visit to make since the General’s entire family were gathered in the room and most of them were clearly in a distressed state. I had to stifle a gasp when I saw the patient in his bed; he was just a skeleton after losing 80lbs. He had been diagnosed with cancer a few years before and, up to that point, had put up a brave fight. Now, however, he was slowly dying, but neither he nor his relatives had acknowledged it aloud. The room was full of tension and tears and I sensed what was needed was words.

He hadn’t lived an overly good life and had been trying to make amends for this during the last year. In fact he was reputed to have been quite a brutal man in his job, and owned up to years of torturing prisoners in order to extract confessions. His past plagued his sickness and made him afraid of being inflicted with eternal punishment beyond the grave. We had actually accompanied him when he started to do ‘good acts’, like giving money to poor students; he set up funding schemes for schools, and he also made merit at temples. Making a merit is basically giving a gift to the temple in order to be forgiven for bad actions.

He beckoned the four of us to his bed while the family respectfully hung back. He was struggling to speak and looked to me like a man who knew he hadn’t got long. I took his hand in mine and Nina drew near to hear him so that she could translate. Breathless with the effort, he openly conveyed his fears for what lay ahead for him after all the evil acts he had performed as Police General. The fear was the only thing keeping him alive; his poor wasted body looked like it was finished. I looked into his eyes, and said: ‘General, you need to let go now, it’s time. You have nothing to be scared about, so just lay down your worries. You are free from all sin now and you have asked for forgiveness. Ahead of you are your loved ones that are waiting to greet you.’

I felt everyone in the room, including the General, being released from the strain of not mentioning death. The worst had been said now, and there was no going back. The family were free now to say their personal goodbyes and he was free to accept them. He wept silently, knowing, at last, that this was it. We left soon after and I was thankful to return the smile he gave me as we left the room. Our friend rang us the next day to tell us that, within minutes of us leaving, the General had asked for the drip to be removed from his arm and went peacefully in his sleep a few hours later. He thanked us profusely on behalf of the family. It must be so hard to see a loved one weakening in front of your eyes, but how much worse is it if the person is fighting the inevitable in pure terror and won’t allow any talk about what is happening. The family’s gratitude was inspiring as I felt we had truly made a huge difference, but there were many more cases like this.

As a result, Nina and I paid a visit to the head of the Police Hospital, Dr Gomin, and asked for his permission to start visiting all the wards in the hospital, spending time with patients and doing errands for them. There is probably more genuine praying going on in hospitals than in any church or temple. If you have never prayed in your life and you are suddenly faced with your dwindling mortality or that of a loved one’s in a hospital room, my guess is that you find yourself breaking the habit of a lifetime.

It can be particularly difficult for Thai nurses and doctors since they just don’t know how to be direct; they are almost repressed by their politeness and wouldn’t know how to break the news to someone that they are dying, or even that they would have to take away a part of your intestine, for example. The doctor understood this and gladly gave us permission to set up our visitation programme. I heard a lot of strange stories from the patients—all of them from the police force—about how they received their injuries and what effect their experience had on them. One highway policeman had his arm ripped right off in a hit and run. He managed to get up and headed towards a main road to look for help. He tried to flag down help, including a low-flying helicopter, by waving his bloody arm, but it must have proved too gruesome a sight and it was quite a while before someone stopped to help him. The people who picked him up drove to their nearby home to fetch a cooler into which they placed the severed limb, and then they drove full speed to the hospital. However, when the medical team prepared to attach the arm they discovered that it was completely frozen and all the nerves were dead—it was, therefore, useless.

Most of the staff in the hospital quickly assessed how much help we could be to them and freely availed of our assistance. One policeman was brought in after shooting himself in the head during a drunken game of Russian Roulette. He lay quietly in his bed with a massive bandage around his head. He was going to be blind but the nurses didn’t want to tell him, so they asked us to. I dreaded telling a young, healthy man that his sight was gone for good; however, as it turned out, he already knew it himself but was glad to have it confirmed aloud for him. It was worse not knowing, and the staff avoiding his nervous inquiries.

Every time I walked on to the wards there were different stories to hear and deal with. There was one guy who had got lost in a large forest and contracted malaria. His brain was mad with fever and it appeared that he had lost his mind. He lay comatose and didn’t seem to even be breathing. Nina and I spent time with him and talked gently to him, even if it looked like he was beyond this world. Months later when he had recovered somewhat, he thanked us for our care and assured us that he heard every word that we said, but that he couldn’t react because the sickness had a grip on his mind.

Some of the staff gave us some attitude. The first time we entered the therapy ward I went up to the ward sister and said, ‘Hi, we have permission from Dr Gomin to visit the patients and help you and them out in any way we can.’

Maybe she was having a bad day but she looked me up and down—and not in a good way—before sulkily muttering,

‘Yeah right!’

Obviously she preferred to take the attitude that I had dared to go above her head and, therefore, undermine her despite the fact that this was the first time we had met. I continued to smile as innocently as I could until she grudgingly gestured towards a patient behind me.

‘Well start with him then. He was shot in the back and is now paralysed from the waist down. Only be careful, he’s very aggressive. In fact he’s so aggressive that none of the nurses will go near him. Good luck with that!’

She turned away and marched off, leaving me and Nina to glance at one another before turning to face the problem patient. I took a deep breath and decided to jump right in before thinking about it for too long. He was staring straight ahead when I approached him.

‘Hi, what happened to you? The nurse says you were shot?’

He muttered something inaudible and continued staring away from me. Nina gave me a, ‘Keep going, you’re doing just great,’ smile.

‘Listen mate, if you don’t look at me this very minute and give me a damn smile I’m going to jump on top of you and tickle you until you cry!’

That got his attention. He stared at me in shock, with, perhaps, just a tiny hint of fear. Since he didn’t smile I reached out and started to tickle him under his nearest arm pit, until finally he relented.

‘Ok, ok, stop, I’m smiling,’ he said, and I released his arm triumphantly. We giggled in relief (I did think I might get thumped instead and couldn’t believe that the tickling had worked!) The ice was broken. We spent well over an hour with him that day, mostly just listening as all his worries poured out of him. It was the first time he had been given the opportunity to talk about what he had experienced and how he felt about being paralysed for life. His immediate fear concerned sex; he had five wives whom he felt wouldn’t be too interested in a husband that couldn’t perform intercourse anymore. He believed himself to be unlovable and unacceptable to any woman. It was a practical and a massive worry that I couldn’t afford to treat lightly. When he had talked himself out I explained that women were not all about sex and that there were plenty of needs that could be met with communication and respect.

We became good friends and he always smiled the second he saw me in case I attempted to tickle him again. The ward Sister was very impressed that I had won him over and she never gave me any trouble again. A short while later, he returned to Hong Kong and called on his favourite of the five wives. I guess he was a lot more of a gentleman than he used to be and even with his paralysed legs she noticed and appreciated the change in him and took him in, choosing to care for and love him forever more.

His condition was a common one in the ward. There were two guys, either side of him, who were also recently paralysed in shootings; one was a fighter while the other was sunk in a deep, deep depression that I couldn’t penetrate. He refused to let the nurse clean him and so he and his bed stank. He was allowing himself to rot away, having completely given up to his injury. Quite understandably, he was angry and bitter and plain disinterested in receiving any help or therapy. It cannot be a coincidence that he died soon after. The 20 other men in the ward were hushed in fear as they watched his body being wrapped up and carried out on a trolley. I was there when it happened and knew I had to do something fast. Depression can be contagious in a hospital room. I cleared my throat and addressed the room.

‘Listen guys, yes he has died but only because he practically willed it. You saw it yourselves; he just gave up without a thought for his family and friends.’

Most of them nodded their agreement, and all of them became more determined to keep striving with their physical and emotional therapy.

I visited that ward a lot and got to know all the men. I knew that most, if not all, of them worried about not being able to have sex. I frequently addressed them at large, as it made more sense to have them understand that they basically all had the same worries and fears; ‘Being paralysed is not the end of your life. Look at Christopher Reeve.’

Most of them were poorly educated and poorly paid in their jobs, and as a result they attached a lot of importance to their ability to have lots of sex and to doing it well. A few of them started squirming in their beds when I began to discuss loving relationships and the different ways of pleasuring a woman without the penis—this is how I got my reputation for being able to mention Jesus and oral sex in the same sentence. Christopher Reeve, the American actor who had played Superman during the 1980s, had become paralysed after breaking his back in a horse-riding accident. He had recently brought out a video, which had just been translated into Thai, about how his relationship with his wife had actually deepened as a result of his disability. It also mentioned that he could still sexually perform and please his wife. This really impressed the patients and gave them much-needed hope for their future.

I loved working at the hospital, as some of the guys I met there were utterly inspiring. Johnny, from Ubolratchathani, was one of these. Even after losing both his legs and arms he was gorgeous. He had been working on a large machine when he was electrocuted so badly that his four limbs were burnt black and had to be amputated. All he had now were stumps sticking out of his shoulders and hips, yet I never once saw him angry or sad about his misfortune. He was always in good form and welcomed me with a smile any time I visited. One day I told him that I just had to ask if he ever get down about his condition. He laughed and said, ‘Of course I get down. I also get scared and wonder how on earth I’m going to survive, but one thing I don’t want to do is worry and panic my family any further.’

I asked him what was he going to do when he left the hospital and he replied, ‘I have it all worked out in my head. I’m quite good on the harmonica and there is a stand that I can buy which will allow me to play it, and then I’m going to approach a couple of pubs where I know the managers and hopefully one of them will hire me as a musician. I just don’t want to have to depend on anyone financially.’

Meeting people like him could only be good for a person.

Another project that we got involved in was a drug rehab centre that was set up by the police. Originally it was down to a woman who had donated property—a large chicken shed—and it had been converted into sleeping quarters with unpleasant toilets. It was extremely primitive and by the time Nina and I visited it, it hadn’t been cleaned in years. I got some local teenagers to help us scrub the place. People in the area kindly made donations of precious luxuries like tiles and curtains, and cleaning detergents. Some of the teens were tempted to dabble in drugs at the time. Thanks to my history I could spot them a mile away, so Nina and I took full advantage during the cleaning to probe and counsel. It was a satisfying experience on many levels. As in Indonesia there was not much help available for anyone who was hooked on drugs. A lot of them ended up in jail with no chance of improvement as, quite possibly, drugs were even easier to get hold of there. Massive jail sentences were usually handed out to anyone guilty of smuggling or selling drugs and it amazed me the amount of people brave/desperate enough to risk landing behind bars for the rest of their days.

My days were becoming fuller and fuller. There was so much work to be done and so many people needed my help. I knew I couldn’t help everyone but still I was driven to do the very best I could. Mostly Talya and I lived on personal donations. I worked hard at not panicking if a lot of bills arrived and I had no idea how I was going to pay them. I had to believe that it would all work out. It always happened that just when I thought we were going to end up out on the streets I would, to distract myself from my worries, bring Talya out to visit a nearby slum and give someone our last few baht and then, by the time we returned, an envelope would have been shoved under our door. The donator usually told me how they wanted the money divided; some for my living expenses and some for a project that they had a particular interest in.