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She loved growing vegetables and flowers and taking pictures of everything that we grew.
She really loved her grandchildren. She wanted them to learn how to garden. She would spend hours with them showing them how to dig the holes to plant the seeds. She always let them water the plants. They loved it.
Michele, Michael, Mark and Uncle Jerry, the last couple days I've been talking to mom and my sister about Aunt Susan, and as you lay her to rest, I wanted to share a few memories. Who can deny that your mom was spontaneous and could be incredibly lively and fun? Watsana said when she was a little girl, your mom was a jokester. She will always remember your mom walking her to school and giving her something to eat after school, but also doing funny pranks, chasing someone around the house with something that might be funny or scary. She always enjoyed laughing and seeing others laugh. Mom said Sompong was always a good little sister. She was would stay with mom and go around the village with her. And even when she was little, she loved fish! Mom says once when Sompong was around 4 years old, they had to go check the fish traps. One trap had too many fish to carry back home, so mom dumped them back in the water. Sompong did not want to let the fish go.She was mad even after they got home! But mom said when she grew up, Sompong was a sister that was always good to her family, remembering her brothers and sisters, even though theirs was a big family.
As for me, I remember Aunt Susan someone who was incredibly creative, thoughtful, caring and hard working. When I visited her home in Murphreesboro once, she had a small fish pond she dug herself in her front yard. It was winter and she didn't want the fish to die. So she caught all the fish and brought them in. I just fell in love with that giant tank full of all kinds of orange angelic looking fish. I felt like a kid again, hanging out with my aunt who was also a big kid. In the years after, she would share her paintings with us, and they always gave us a clue of the things that were important to her--scenes of her homeland and childhood and scenes from the Bible. I still have her beautiful painting of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea.
As mom got older and sicker, Susan was the sister who would always come with goodies to share-- vegetables she'd pickled herself, fish she'd caught, and meat Uncle Jerry had hunted. She enjoyed bringing mom things that reminded them both of the good bountiful times in Thailand. As Susan got older she softened. She was always very zealous and evangelistic as a woman with Bible verses on the tip of her tongue, but in the last years she was with us, most of her ministry to her big sister was just showering her with love and telling mom about God's goodness. I am so glad Susan could be there when mom was baptized. She got to see the fruit from all those years of telling mom about Jesus.
Aunt Susan had alot of spunk, and I always admired her for that. My dad could be quite ornery, and whenever she visited, no matter how grumpy Uncle Bill was, she was able to laugh things off and keep smiling and teasing dad until he had to smile or back down. She had a way of knowing how to deal with tough guys.
When Aunt Susan came, she often came with one or two of her grandkids. I always got the feeling she enjoyed playing outside more than they did. The first time she came, she planted irises. They bloom every year. And I can still see her fishing outside in the sun, working her way around our pond. She sure knew what to do with a fishing pole. If there was only one fish in a pond, Aunt Susan was gonna catch that fish. One day she had been especially lucky and caught alot of fish. She was on a roll, but her big sister was fussing at her at sundown to come in and get a bath. Aunt Sompong was so in the moment, she had gone the whole day without combling the knots out of her hair. She had the priorities of a true fisherman. With big sister fussing at her, she got her bath and came out in satiny/silky pajamas with a velvet robe. When no one was looking, she sneaked outside into the dark and went back to her fishing poles. She had left some special bait on two lines still at the pond. That night, she walked back to the house with a catfish the length of her farm. She dumped it in the cooler and went back to the pond to catch the next one, and then she came back with another giant catfish. We had fun on that trip too, going around the pond with scoop nets to fish out fresh water clams. When I got tired she kept going and filled a giant 5 gallon paint bucket with clams. She had so much energy when she was having fun. Mom said Aunt Sompong was just like their mom. They both would work and work and work with nonstop energy and wouldn't plop down until they were done with everything. I never knew grandma, but knowing Aunt Sompong, I feel like I knew my grandma a little. I will always remember Aunt Sompong sitting at the dinner table, telling us stories and laughing exuberantly, ribbing someone next to her or giggling them on the shoulder to join in on the fun. That was the beautiful thing about Aunt Sompong, she loved life and family and fun, and she always wanted to share that with those she loved. I always knew it was going to be a good time when Aunt Sompong came, and it was nice to see the spark in mom's eyes as she watched Sompong being busy outside. Aunt Sompong, thanks for being my ever youthful aunt, for always being adventurous, and for always reminding me you're never too old to play and live life with gusto.
