9:59 a.m. - Tuesday, Jan. 07, 2003
Wanee
Four months ago this minute, give or take the time difference half a planet and many worlds away, I opened my eyes in the thin gray an hour before sunrise to see a most exotic and graceful woman in silhouette against the uncovered windows of my hospital suite.

At that moment, the entire universe was silent. She sat in the middle of a bed like mine with her legs crossed. Her arms were held out together in front, and she was moving only her hands in a series of characteristically oriental stretching exercises. In great simplicity can often be found great beauty. The simplicity of her movements were a profound example.

At first I didn�t recognize her. I was in that hollow slot between drugged sleep and real pain. Already I knew I was going to hurt. In a moment I would turn my attention to myself and begin the inventory of agony. But for a few seconds, I was outside myself, transfixed by the shadow in the dawn.

I didn�t need to think. I only needed to accept that this was my nurse Wannee. We had met less than two days ago, yet I loved her. It was Wannee whose face appeared above the Cardboard sign with my name written in clumsy english letters at the airport in Bangkok. Worth less than a penny, I had already paid more than ten thousand dollars to see it and in the wee morning hours of a very foreign city in a land as far away as one can go, I was happy beyond words to see both the sign and Wannee�s tired face.

She was (and is) a devout Buddhist. Her every action had its origins in her guiding philosophy. �Harm no one, Do only good, Enjoy living.� In the short time I had know her, she had driven me from Bangkok to Chonburi in the middle of the night, helped me check into the Hotel Mercure, carried my luggage, picked me up in the morning for my consultation with Dr Suporn and then taken me to the hospital to be checked in. In short, she had taken care of me like a little child, which is very much what I felt like in this strange land.

Now, as I awoke, I realized that she had been by my side every minute since my surgery. I remembered dimly a time when I was vomiting and that it was she who had held the vomit bowl; she who had been splashed in stinking bile when that bowl was too small and too slow. I did not remember the sleep that took me away again, but in the instant of reawakening, I knew that she had been at my side, wakeful and watchful over me as my body lay helpless and alone.

When she saw my tears, she slid silently from her bed and came to my side. She laid a cool hand on my forehead; the universal sign of caring and soothing. She told me it was alright and reached for the glass to offer me clear water. She thought I was crying from pain. She was wrong. I was crying because she was so beautiful.

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