Dear Emily,
My uncle was on holiday with his family outside Bangkok when he accidentally bumped into my father, who was with a woman and two teenagers, having lunch in this out-of-the-way restaurant. Both of them got shocked seeing each other there. He knew her as my father’s first ever secretary in the office he first managed. My father asked him not to say anything to my mother because he said he would tell her himself, which he did.
My mother did not make this drama any harder than it was. She was so classy that her first question was if the kids went to a good school and if they were well provided for. My father was surprised at my mother’s calmness, and was so embarrassed and repentant for being a cad. He promised her that except for his support to this other family, he would not hurt her ever again. My father kept his word.
Our family life was not upended in any way. I was just 12 then, the eldest of four siblings. The revelation didn’t make any of us think less of our father. But I give all the credit to my mother’s dignity at what otherwise would have been a scandal. It also sealed my father’s deep respect and gratitude to her until he passed. There’s no one like her. She showed us the true meaning of kindness and generosity despite the unspeakable hurt she went through.
—GRATEFUL SON
You could say your mother was made of granite and gold! It was beneath her to bedevil an episode in their marriage that was already a done deal. Her anger could not have turned back time. It would have been counter-productive in her book, had she flailed and made a fool of herself. She accepted her fate and calmly moved on.
With all the drama unfolding in every nook and corner of our little planet, your mother’s solution to a grave marital problem should be emulated. She had such a vast comprehension of humanity and how actions affected lives tremendously. Had she been selfish, mean and not cared a hoot about the lives of the kids her husband had fathered, they could have suffered much themselves. She knew how they themselves were just as much victims of this, their shared fate, as she was.
But, the kindness and generosity she showed to everyone was truly beyond compare! She truly had class, and that class made her worth her weight in gold.
