The writing Blog

Windsor, Berkshire, England

(A Thai Woman Ponders)

Windsor is a beautiful, well planned and orderly tourist attraction full of classy English residents. It has a vibrant atmosphere, which makes one think classical music, traditional songs and and poems that have been popular for centuries. Such are the English people, walking among the ancient yet living within the modern. Royal Windsor Park covers most of the town center. It is 2,020 hectares surrounded by tall trees, overflowing with well kept, even manicured green meadows.

Within the park is the “Long Walk”. The English love to walk when the weather allows. While walking alone you come of the front of Windsor Castle, an ancient royal residency hardly ever inhabited by Queen Elizabeth II and her family. Surprisingly, red deer are easily spotted along with many birds. The aroma of dried leaves in Autumn is divine. Spring freshness tells of the coming Summer. All this after the cold winds of the very dark December. It rains then, sometimes turning into crisp, blue days. A blind person could sense the feeling of every day only through smells. The air is rich with clues.

Two guardsmen are much the same as those who have guarded the entrance to Windsor Castle for centuries. On the green near the guards is a large statue of Queen Victoria, once the Empress of India when the sun never set on the British Empire. She commands are view of the castle, with her stone dead gaze, yet reminding visitors of the once great empire, now a shadow of its former self.

The famous River Thames is not far from the front of the castle. It still has fish, bevies of swans, the majority of them being white, each tagged with a metal ring on their left legs showing that these are the Queen’s swans and not to be touched by commoner’s hands. On most any day this park is full of human stories, thought but not spoken. One of these stories is the thoughts of a small Thai woman, who has come to compose a letter to her son, Sam.

Chapter 1: Who is this Mother to Her Son?

One rainy night in September I was sitting on the left bank of the Thames.

I was sad and confused. My heart ached. Tears fell from my eyes, mixing with the cold rain. Until tears came no more.

I looked again at the court order for divorce that said my son was no longer mine. Had I made the wrong decision? After all, I thought, I had decided to divorce his father. But now I am thinking back and remembering my son’s young voice. It is pleading, “England is my home and I want to grow up here. I love it here, this is my country!” I knew, even though we would be separated, that your needs were more important than mine.

She asks herself, “Would it be right or wrong for me to leave Sam in England instead of taking him back to Thailand, my beloved country?”

So, she decides, for the sake of Sam’s desires, that she will endure life’s challenges alone so he can remain in his beloved country. Challenges? She still feels like a foreigner, her English passable but not good enough to understand English law and culture. She was alone. At first, she tried to find work and could find none. She knew that Sam’s father had no family to lend support. She was happy, though, for sister Dao, an older Thai friend. She could talk and cry with her.

She tried to learn more English so that she could find work for survival. One night, she looked around her studio bedroom and in the corner, illuminated by a green light, where the wall met the blue ceiling, and she saw emptiness.

She thought back: “Sam told me to never give up.” Even though he lives with his father, it is best for him but I have his support. This gives me the strength to continue. Sam’s moral support gave me encouragement and I dedicated myself to be mindful of the goals in my life, to keep thinking positively. He gave me the strength to pull myself together and face life challenges.

But even with friends and a supportive sister, I wished that everyone would love and understand me. But so many people need love and they often need support. Unfortunately, most people see their own needs first. Sometimes they are so involved with themselves that they can’t listen.

But that’s life, there’s no perfection. People’s feelings change frequently. They are like rain that mixed with my tears. Sometimes they are stormy, but often it ends in a beautiful rainbow. Lightning can strike and be painful but eventually there are clouds with silver linings.

Copyright @ by Michael Schwartz ; 2019