Scarred People are Beautiful, February 2008

I came across this bit of writing in one of those Antioch retreats from a very long time ago. After what happened to Little Nio, this memory came back out of the cobwebs and I googled to find the complete text.

My apologies if this violates any copyrights to have this posted here.

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Scarred People are Beautiful

Man speaks:

I've seen a number of movies lately, Lord, like Romeo and Juliet.
The love of young people, at least in those movies,
is beautiful...
so simple... so total... so uncomplicated.
They seem so natural,
so free in their emotions, so clear in their feelings.
I wish i could be like that, Lord, but it can't be.
Why is it so?

I've been hurt, Lord.
I have trusted and been betrayed at times.
I have loved and received nothing in return.
I have tried hard to care and failed often.
I have shared my secrets and, heard them
whispered to others.
I have been warm and received a cold shoulder.

I have been through it, Lord.
I've fallen on my face.
I've banged my shins.
I've been bruised.
Look, Lord, I'm all covered with scars!

The Lord speaks:

Maybe you haven't understood enough
Maybe you haven't learned tat human life is like that:
All Saints are scarred.

Young love isn't the highest form of human love.
The greatest love comes from scarred people.
I know that many people stop loving so they won't be hurt again.

But those people who do start over again,
who continue in spite of all,
who leave themselves open
to the possibility of being hurt again.

Those people are able to love again in a deeper way,
a more understanding way,
a richer way.

Man's response:

I think i know what you mean, Lord.
I've met people like that...
and knowing them gives me courage.
The great people are those who continue
to love with their scars.
I like SCARRED PEOPLE, Lord-
THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL!

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Little Nio after his accident, with his aunt, Pa Kut. Note the matching shirts.

Children are more forgiving. I know that Pa Kut was blaming herself for what had happened. And I also know that she was deathly afraid that I would be angry with her. In this process of healing, it's good to see that Pa Kut has started to forgive herself. This, for me, is a really beautiful photo of two scarred people.

First Accident, February 2008

My heart jumped out of my throat and I could feel the blood run out from my face.

I got a call from my wife, Kanittha, that morning at work. She said that Little Nio had fallen down on his head... and that there was a lot of blood... and they were on the way to the hospital already. I could hear him crying in the background, he was obviously in pain.

My son does not usually cry in pain. He whines when he needs to communicate a need and he gets belligerent when he doesn't get what he's asking for. If he bumps his head he will stifle a cry and grumble about it with a sad face, then forget about it in a couple of minutes.

I left the office as quickly as I could. My boss, Donal, Little Nio's godfather, told me to drop everything and just go. I shut down my computer system right away and barked last minute instructions as I hurried to the lifts. I deliberately set my driving to a very aware and safe driving mode. The last thing we needed was another accident.

I am so very, very proud of my wife. She handled the crisis exactly as I had trained her. Manage the emergency, get all your resources sequenced properly and then make the calls once the emergency procedures are in process. She knew to call me after she had set things in motion and not to wait for me. She realized that I would be stuck in Bangkok traffic for at least half an hour before I could get to the hospital, so she managed as much as she could, and arranged to meet me at the emergency room.

While in the car she called to ask me to stop by the apartment before coming to the hospital, for extra clothes for Little Nio. He had completely bloodied all the clothes that he had been wearing.

Ten minutes later she called again, to tell me that she had remembered and found the spare clothes we had packed in the emergency bag. No need for me to go to the apartment, I should go to the hospital. But by that time, I had already made a committed detour for our apartment and I was now caught up in the flow of traffic without a chance of finding an alternative route to the hospital.

When I finally arrived, they were already out of the emergency room waiting at the cashier counter. As soon as Little Nio saw me he let out a sharp angry yell, "AAAAARRH!" As if to say "where were you?!! and what took you soooo long to get here?!!". Perhaps that was just my guilt. He might as well have yelled, "it's about time!"



I took this photograph at the hospital. Six stitches on the side of his nose on his left cheek. His chin, his left cheek, the eyelid surrounding his left eye and his forehead were all slightly bruised.

Apparently what had happened was that he had gone down with Pa Kut, to the carport in our apartment, in much the same way that they did everyday. My wife was upstairs in our unit on the fourth floor, washing his bottles and tending to other household chores.

Pa Kut had set Little Nio down so he could stretch his legs and do a bit of walking. She loves him dearly and takes extremely good care of him. She always holds on to both his hands when they go walking together like this. Little Nio had caught sight of a bird that had landed nearby, and before she could grab on to his waist securely, he bolted out of her hands chasing after the bird.

He might have suddenly remembered that he couldn't walk yet, or he may have lost his balance due to the uneven ground off the paved driveway. Either way, he came down hard on the side of a planter that split his cheek open.

At the hospital, I took my son into my arms and gave him a big and gentle reassuring hug. He hasn't learned how to speak yet, but that didn't stop him from blubbering and jabbering away as if complaining. I held him close and let him work it out of his system, stroking his back as he complained it all away. He truly does have some fiery Navarro blood coursing through his veins... and it hasn't been diluted at all, since my wife's family are fighters as well.

The second thing I did was I gave Pa Kut a big hug, to let her know that it was all an accident, and that I know she always does her very best to take care, to protect and watch over Little Nio. My wife shared that Pa Kut has a history of suffering from a weak heart. Stressful incidents like this might cause her to faint, or worse still she might have a heart failure. It was very important for me that she knows how much she means to us, and specially how much she means to Little Nio.

Accidents happen. We were very fortunate that while it was a big cut on Little Nio's cheek, it was in a place that might not even leave a scar when he grows older. And even if it does leave a slight, subtle scar, he can wear it proudly as a sign of character. We are very blessed to have Pa Kut with us, Little Nio's very own real life guardian angel.

Happy Birthday, Nio, February 2008

Today is the birthday of Antonio Vachirawit Navarro.

Happy Birthday, Little Nio!



As soon as he got up that morning, we all gathered around the dining room table to greet Little Nio a very, very happy first birthday. From left-to-right, his aunt — Pa Kut, Mommy, Little Nio with his birthday gift and then Daddy.

The decorations are simple... just some heart shaped balloons and a birthday canopy made from colored paper. From all the happy colors and fancy shapes, Little Nio could tell that this was a very special day for him.



Fresh out of bed with his hair all disheveled, Little Nio is overawed by the size of his present. His Mommy gives him his special birthday hug.



Before he's allowed to open up his gift he takes a quick bath and gets into some nice clothes. Here he is ready to open up his gift with Pa Kut and Mommy looking on.



Looks like a little assistance is required.



It's a combination airplane-xylophone... some kind of xyloplane. Little Nio is delighted with it and proceeds to bang away at it and make numerous attempts to destroy it.



Fortunately both the gift and the birthday card survive the energetic revelry. The gift wrapping was not so fortunate though.



With all the celebrations and activities poor Little Nio's batteries run out on him. He takes a much needed power nap on the way to inspecting the new house at Urbanion.



Here's Little Nio with Daddy on the second floor of our future home. There's going to be a sofa here where we are standing because this will become our living room.



Another shot with Daddy. Little Nio is trying on his mind control powers here in this photo. If you stare into his eyes you will find him incredibly irresistible and absolutely adorable. He uses this mind control trick on me all the time, and I tell you that it really works.



Sitting on the staircase on the way up to the third floor, with Pa Kut and Mommy.



Now here we are checking out the cabinets in Little Nio's bedroom. All the built-in wardrobe joinery was done by SB Furniture, and paid for with gift vouchers that came with the house. I should take a moment to share that SB Furniture have a decent product, but they are probably one of the worst companies ever when it comes to mass produced joinery. Their design teams are incompetent, their sales staff are completely useless... with the only redeeming aspect being their on-site installation team.

Our experience with SB Furniture has been absolutely traumatic. Fortunately I went ballistic several weeks ago, and did not have to terrorize anyone on Little Nio's birthday. SB Furniture's design team is completely incapable of working with their own modular system to create customized solutions, that will satisfy specific client requirements. They should not advertise and claim to have "custom built solutions". They only have a handful of modular bits and a lot of wastage. Their biggest waste are those pseudo-designers they employ, who are a complete embarrassment to the profession and discipline of design. No real designer would ever tell a client with a valid design problem, "we can't do that" before even thinking about it.

The sales team are a bunch of dim-witted ninnies who have no concept of customer service. Just because we have come in with gift vouchers and they know they already have our money, they don't treat us with the level of attention required. They are probably on commission, so with the vouchers considered a "done deal" that does absolutely nothing for their prospects their attitude towards us was less than attentive. I made sure to straighten them out by discouraging other customers from closing any transactions with them.

The staff manning the cashier counters are equally useless. Instead of assisting and supporting the miserable designers and flailing sales staff by prioritizing our purchases, they made me wait, which made me even more infuriated with them all. I closed off an entire section and blocked out an entire cashier station of four cashiers and re-routed all other sales elsewhere. My apologies to all the other customers at that time, but SB Furniture were not going to get away with wasting my time any further. I probably should not have exploded, but the alternative of going about things in the subdued mode was not as effective.

In any case, we eventually got our cabinets. They installers arrived on site and the designers had screwed up by sending them with the original sketches and not the revised and approved drawings. We got all those sorted out on site with the installation team and I guess we're happy that we are done with SB Furniture.



After visiting Urbanion, we all went to have birthday lunch at MK Restaurant situated at The Mall Ngamwongwan.



Back again at our SB Court apartment, Little Nio derives maximum pleasure from playing with his used socks.



Here we are gathered around Little Nio's very first birthday cake, a chocolate fudge cake from S&P.



Mommy starts cutting up the cake while Little Nio and Pa Kut look on. Suddenly, my wife decides that there should be a radical wardrobe change for Little Nio if he is really going to enjoy his birthday cake.



Mommy decides that a birthday suit for Little Nio would be most appropriate for eating his birthday cake. We had to check how he would feel about wolfing down some fudge while in the buff.





He seems to be fine eating cake in this fashion. Minimized mess, with optimized fun. Let's hope that as he gets older, we will be able to dress him up with more articles of clothing.