Out of the darkness

Two years after losing her beloved husband to cancer, Naowarat Kaewwong has finally found her feet again, happy with her life at home with her two young daughters.  

   She can still recall the day a doctor told her that her husband was ill. A cruel irony for a man who had never been a drinker or a smoker, he was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer.

"We had been together for almost 12 years when we learned that he was at the serious stage of the disease," she begins.

It was a terrible shock to receive such a bolt out of calm, blue skies, but Naowarat readjusted to the situation quickly, firm in her resolve to give her husband all the emotional and physical support she could right to the very end.

"We decided to move the whole family from Bangkok back to his hometown in Udon Thani, which has a quality of life that the capital can't match. Though the disease loomed over us, family life was like a blessing." 

To begin with, her husband's health was fine and he could look after himself. But with the progress of the cancer, his symptoms became unstable and there were dramatic dips in his condition. Naowarat's office at Don Muang International Airport meant a decision to commute by air between Udon Thani and Bangkok for the whole of the year.

"I had to keep things running both at home and at work, and also remember to look after myself so I could look after him. I wanted to be with him as much as I could - some days I even tried the check-in counter at lunchtime to see if there were any available seats."

Naowarat encouraged her husband to share his worries during the illness.

"I think it's important for someone facing cancer to be able to deal with their fears out in the open. So we talked about any issue as it arose. I told him that I wouldn't remarry; we also discussed the future education of our daughters. He was concerned about his father and relatives in Udon Thani, and I told him what I would do to take care of them."

The strength of her commitment never wavered, and Naowarat believes her husband wasn't burdened by any unfinished business.

"I found him calmer, saying simply that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with us - the happiest family in the world. But when the signs that he was in the last stages of his illness came, I had to take him back to the hospital in Bangkok.

"I was at his bedside and I shared in the suffering. When the doctor gave him pain-relieving drugs, I sat with him until the pain passed. We held hands constantly and talked about everything as if we were youngsters in the first flush of love."

Not long after, the doctor called her in. She was told that her husband had just hours left to live. Naowarat broke down. She decided that she had to tell her husband, though.

"I walked back to his room and told him that we had only 10 hours to spend with each other. He paused and nodded his head calmly. He said he needed to write goodbye letters to his loved ones, and also wanted see his daughters and father before the end."

That night she phoned Udon Thani, and arranged for them to drive down to Bangkok.

"He said goodbye to everyone, and wanted to prostrate himself at the feet of his father one last time. I wanted to do the same for him, and asked our two daughters to join me. Finally, he told everyone not to worry, as he was going to a beautiful place to be with Lord Buddha."

It's difficult for Naowarat to share the story without tears welling up in her eyes.

"Around 10am that day, he told me he was going now, and pulled the oxygen mask off."

The thought of death had always scared her, but in these final moments, says Naowarat, she encountered a beautiful side to life. She realised her husband had passed away in peace.

Over the seven days of rites at the Buddhist temple, she stayed strong and calm. There was no sign of tears, but on her return to Udon Thani, Naowarat says she couldn't stop crying.

"Everywhere I turned there were pictures of him - the grief was inescapable. Though I've had the dharma on the impermanence of life drummed into me, I was still crying for days and days."

Then one day she heard something that altered her perspective. A colleague told her the story of how her own husband had died from cancer three years ago. She too had looked after him right up until the end. But she found out soon after that he already had a family when his offspring went to court to sue over the inheritance.

"She told me that I still had my husband with me, even though he's passed away," says Naowarat. "He's still mine - he doesn't belong to others. This opened my eyes, putting my own loss in a completely different light."

 Naowarat now devotes herself to her family and work, and is often invited to speak in public on ways of coping with suffering.

This is a role she's taken on willingly, in the hope that she can help ease the pain that others may be going through.

Vipasai Niyamabha

The Nation