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The fourth and final major ceremony. (Just as a side note: I wrote this entire piece yesterday and then lost it when it was uploaded, in spite of the fact that from bitter experience with dodgy internet connections I had copied the entire article — alas it did not copy! So this may be a little terse as a result...)
We arrived in Bangkok Halloween morning. Got a room and met up with folks over the next few days and decided to have the Bangkok ceremony on the following Sunday the 4th of November. We decide to have the ceremony at Benjasari Park which was one of the few green spaces near where we lived with Braedwyn in Bangkok and we took him there on a number of occasions.
There were about a dozen people at the ceremony, as a number of people we knew from living in Bangkok were either no longer there or away for the time being. We started with each person lighting an incense stick and offering up a silent prayer or whatever they felt as prayers and incense are the norm here. After this we had the usual Talking Circle and closed with three Oms. Mihai took some photos and when I visit him later in the week I shall upload some of them to accompany this piece.
The ceremony complete, this marked the end of our intended four major ceremonies. The process has been hard at times, encouraging at others. We really want to thank everyone for the love you have shown us during this most insanely difficult of times and extend our love to all of you.
After another almost week in Bangkok, we headed down to Koh Phangan for a week. It rained a lot which gave us plenty of time to brood upon our fate — perhaps too much.
So this leaves us wondering what to do next with ourselves and how to try to make something good out of what can only be called the worst day of our lives. Bee and Julia and people from Ben Franklin Institute collected a lot of money to be put to good use in Braedwyn's memory and we are still giving a lot of thought to how best to do just that. There still has been no cause determined by the coroner's office and it seems the chances are slim at this point that there will be one. This leaves us without an obvious charity to send the money. We would also like to take a more active role than just writing a check to someone to do something good. I intend to really focus on this over the next month or so up in the mountains. Don't want to jump at the first notion, as I've already had dozens and I'd be hard pressed to recall which bubbled up first in my mind.
I am planning to do some upgrades to the site in the next couple of weeks such as adding videos as I have many of those. I also intend to write more about the myriad of thoughts and feelings brought on by this tragic event and its aftermath. Perhaps it is indulgent, but at least somewhat therapeutic. Again, thank you all.