Music For The Eldest Daughter

The eldest daughter is expected

to take care of her parents here

as she is in many societies, but

in rural Thai families where younger

siblings and even her own married

off-springs leave home only to drop

off their own babes to be raised at

the family homestead while they try

to make a go in the wider world,

being the home bound eldest daughter

entails, a great deal more.

My wife left school after the fourth

grade before puberty hit to work

on a paving crew and she navigated

the rest of her life on “street smarts,”

which left her as an adult trying

to swim in a tidal pool after the water

had ebbed.

“She takes money out of your wallet,”

my American sister screams, “All I

can say is you’re the big dummy!”

Yes, she does this, and refuses to talk

about money at all.  She has secret

schemes and never asks my advice. 

She’ll sink or swim by herself - those

are the rules of the eldest daughter.

There is her grandfather, her mother, two

daughters, a grandchild, two dogs,

four cats, orchids, her salon business,

and now, of course after her husband ran

off a decade ago, there’s me who all

depend upon her.

Yet, for all her schemes and petty lies,

no customer can come too early or too late

for her to do hair, nails or sell clothes too.

Today, I walked out and slid the glass door.

to her shop open.  She stood behind a

customer while combing out straight

black hair and holding an upright,

screaming, industrial-grade hair dryer.

When she finally saw me, she clicked off

the dryer and asked “Pie Nigh” [go where?].

I shrugged and took a step back outside.

She turned the hair dryer back on, cocked

her head and winked at me. For a second

she seemed to be dancing to music.

I grew up in the US and am tone deaf

to such music even if I could hear it above

the dryer’s roar.  I slid the glass door

closed on her shop, on her customers,

on her two helper daughters, and on her

diabetic mother sleeping on the floor.

I smiled at her through the glass.

No, I can’t hear the music, and if

you’re from the west you probably

can’t either.  I can’t hear it, but

I know it’s there.

FG 2/7/2014

 

A friend, the saying goes, is someone who knows you and still is.  I know this isn’t much of a Valentine Day’s poem, but my Thai wife is amazing.  I would be lost without her.