Wow. Flabbergasted, I write this short post:

We have some astonishingly good friends. Unfortunately, they’re in another hemisphere. A group of our friends in Cambodia, spearheaded by Bec, but accompanied in gloriosity by Ben, Andrew, Anthea, Stephanie (A-teh), and Sokhun, just sent us the most wonderful gift that Arun has ever received, or frankly is likely to ever receive. It’s a book.

It’s a little personal, so I won’t show it here, but essentially Bec, who is a art therapist for children, put together a beautiful, and largely child-proof (good thinking!) book for and about Arun: who he is, where he came from, where he is now, and where his old friends are. It talked about how wonderful he is, and how he might be missing his friends; it talked about some ideas for dealing with missing his friends. I cried when I read it, and being a macho man, I don’t cry so easily (friends know this is a joke, but seriously). Then we opened the ‘personal’ letters sealed in an envelope. I read them all out loud, translating Sokhun’s letter for the audience, and we all cried together. Partly in happiness, partly in joy, an emotion I think the portuguese and brazilians call ‘saudade.’

Again, the letters were too personal, but I need to mention one thing from Sokhun’s letter, partly because it’s beautiful, partly because our friends who organized the thing probably didn’t notice it, since it was written in Khmer. She dated the letter in traditional Khmer style: “The xth day, Month of x, the Year of x”. But instead of actual dates, she wrote:

The day of missing, the month of remembering, the year of crying in sleep

Wow.

Here’s a picture of Arun and I reading the book together. Thanks friends. We love you all.