
What I learned from my hardest moment in Thailand

Wow. What a scary experience! Thanks so much for sharing.
Thank you, Cameron. I’m glad to say there have been much happier times since this happened. 🙂
Oh wow, Stacy, what a wild early introduction to the ex-pat family life. A little different than just the two of you roaming the far corners of the earth. Hopefully, that’s the most harrowing adventure your family will have while abroad. You all are in my thoughts, especially as we approach the holidays. May you find glorious and significant ways to celebrate the strength you all have as a unit. Hugs, Jennifer.
Yes, life as expat with kids is much different than when we were childless in our 20s! Thank you for this thoughtful comment, friend. I appreciate you. Happiest holidays to you.
Thankfully you and your family were able to absorb the “blows” and recover. My wife and I are actively pursuing moving outside the US as well and this highlights one of the risks that are hard, if not impossible, to anticipate.
Thank you.
As Mr. Spock would say, ‘Live long and prosper.’
Thank you, Larry. There are so many potential difficulties living abroad, but I wouldn’t let that stop you from going for it. From my view, little compares to being out in our big, wide, beautiful world. 🙂 I hope you make your living abroad dream happen!
What a nightmare! I’m so glad all of you survived it. My worst sickness was strep throat that came on while we were traveling with our small children. My husband was attending a conference so he couldn’t help me. Completely drained of energy, I was barely able to move, but had to load our luggage in the car and tend to my babies. By the time we got home, my fever was over 104 and I couldn’t get out of bed. The doctor prescribed meds over the phone which is good. I could have never made it to his office.
Strep can be awful, and 104 as an adult is serious! I’m glad you were able to get medicine. Caring for kids when you’re that sick is incredibly difficult. It makes me appreciate the health I enjoy nearly every day.
Oh my. hang in there. potential nightmare when you’re planning all this from US and then it comes to life! Your family is strong and one day you may be able to laugh at the memory. big hugs!
Thanks, Lisa! No matter how much planning and preparation you do, there will always be things like this that you can’t avoid. It’s too raw to laugh now, but I sure hope we can someday! 🙂 Hugs back!
Oh Stacy, this post is heartbreaking. As a mother I can totally understand how you felt. Feeling inadequate as a parent while our babies need us feels like a fate worse than death. Please know you are an amazing parent and have a phenomenal family that will always know how much you love and care for them!!
On another note, we certainly miss you guys around here. It was always a joy to see the kids and Doug when he’d ramble into TriTown during the day! I do love following your adventures though so have fun, get messy and LIVE LIFE!!!
Thank you for this wonderfully encouraging comment, Dominique! It made me smile. We miss Boise, and Doug talks about TriTown regularly. Boise is our home, and we will return! 🙂
Being fortunate enough to live abroad and travel is such a blessing, particularly for your children. I was able to travel to ~30 countries with my dad, before he passed, and those experiences shaped my perspectives as a young man. Travel has a way of teaching that life is rarely as bad or good as we imagine it to be, to enjoy every day, and that connecting with others, locally or globally, is truly what matters the most.
It is a blessing, Jim! I hope to give my children the experience your dad gave you. And connecting with others—you’re right, that’s what it’s all about. Thank you for sharing.
I know how scary it is when your kids are sick, but your situation was so much worse because you were so sick. My unexpected experience was a divorce after 19 years of marriage. I found my strength by making sure my sons were taken care of even before child support started, and of course during, that is one thing I can say I did right in my life.
Thanks for reading and sharing your experience, Tim. It’s powerful to be able to look back on those challenging experiences and know you did the right thing, especially when it comes to your children.
My only third world experience was when I walked around Reynosa, Mexico while I was in law school in Houston. I was dating a girl from Monterrey at the time, who went to UH with me. She told me that while she loved her home country she’d be the first to admit it had some serious issues compared with the United States. During winter break of my second year at UH Law Center I decided to take a trip to McAllen, South Padre Island and Reynosa and see for myself – all within a safe distance of the US border.
Since my car insurance was no good in Mexico, I parked in Hidalgo, Texas and walked over. Compared to American cities of the same size Reynosa was startlingly dense and compact, and within several hours I walked around the whole place. I knew enough Spanish to get by. I walked through the Zona Rosa, the city’s wealthy area, near the local Pemex refinery, through the city’s downtown market, through a Gigante’s supermarket, and eventually through several poor residential and industrial districts on my way back to the US border bridge.
My thoughts: life here is on a whole different level than in the USA. The understanding of the highly abstract ideas of individual rights – the roots of which go back to Plato, Aristotle, Jesus, Mohammed and Aquinas and which were developed by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, and which I was learning about in law school – was very weak in Mexico compared with the United States. Suddenly upon realizing this I became nervous. What if a Mexican national suspected I was an American, started trouble with me, and when I needed the police, the police didn’t care about battery, assault, theft, kidnapping, etc. and just decided the other guy was right because he was Mexican and I wasn’t? What if all of a sudden they wanted money from me, thinking I was rich because I’m American, and decided to exert leverage over me? Take me into custody indefinitely until I paid them thousands of dollars to buy back my freedom? And they didn’t care or even understand rational arguments about rights?
Realizing the danger I was in, I calmly walked back through the east side of Reynosa towards the border. On the way I passed a shantytown by railroad tracks. This is the third world, I thought as I looked at the cardboard hovels and garbage strewn everywhere. I saw people milling about doing I didn’t know what. Their faces had an emotional numbness I previously only saw in the movies and on TV. I realized they were living lives with no hope of achieving anything significantly better than what they had at that time. That’s where the numbness came from – from so much despair, fear, pain and misery that, no matter what happens, whether a child dies, a friend gets sick, another gets arrested, etc., they can only get so upset. And happiness seemed unknown to them. All their lives were and would ever be, would be endless drudgery and suffering ended by death.
It didn’t take me long to realize why. The ideas, like individual rights, needed to facilitate their pursuit of happiness were unknown to them. Thus they couldn’t help themselves and nobody else in Mexico could or would either. Regarding the wealthy people in Mexico who did succeed, it usually wasn’t effort or smarts or anything else within one’s control but rather connections, through birth or chance, that got anyone anywhere.
Needless to say, boy was I happy to cross the border back into Texas! And boy am I happy and always thankful that, no matter how corrupt, sleazy or rotten American politicians or businessmen can be, or how nasty Americans can get, how bad our schools are, or whatever other problems we have in this country (and I’ve had many – bullied, intimidated, ostracized, etc.), I’m an American. I’ve been frustrated but I’ve been truly happy too, and I know that unlike in the third world if I work hard I’m free to succeed. After Reynosa I think I’m mentally incapable of taking any of this for granted.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Gray. A perspective of gratitude is powerful, and you are a great storyteller. 🙂 One thing I can say from experience living in three developing countries is that the depth of emotion, including joy, is often there, but it can take time and patience to dig deeper and see what isn’t immediately visible on the surface. Thailand, for example, while a developing country, has some of the most joyful people and beautiful hearts I’ve ever experienced—in spite of the serious challenges and difficulties there. My last week in Phuket, I was in tears with a server at a restaurant who poured out her heart over the loss of her child; she gifted me with what I consider a precious gift, a Buddhist bracelet, and told me she would pray for me. While I’m not Buddhist, I will cherish that gift, and that moment, forever. Like you, I felt deep gratitude for all that I have, and for my healthy children and access to good medical care. Travel is a beautiful way to experience gratitude!
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