Thursday, October 15, 2015

a Thai hand

My Thai nephew is in his early teens - a gorgeous, black-haired boy with an inherent fashion sense and a shy, irresistible charm. His most treasured possessions are his guitar, his subwoofer, his mountain bike and his friends - not necessarily in that order.

His eyes eyes shine at me across the table in one of the Thai restaurants in our town. Unusually, I'm having lunch with only him and his mother, the rest of the family occupied elsewhere. As we leave the restaurant, his mother and I grab one each of his hands and walk like that for a while, just to tease him. The teenager scoffs but indulges us with an eye-roll.

In fact, I can only recall one other time that just the three of us had lunch in town together. It must be close to ten years ago. He was tiny then, just arrived from his country of birth and shoved into a cold Finnish winter. I remember him charming shop assistants and just about everyone we met. And I remember him walking hand in hand with me just like this. His tiny hand in a thick winter glove. It's a ten-year-old déjà-vu.

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