Let it never be said that I forget old girlfriends! Probably because there have been so few in my life. Anyway, it had been over five years since I’d last set eyes on Rasamee. The actual breakup came soon after that and though we still stayed in touch via email and I continued to help her, I eventually broke that off as well. The unending requests for money wore me out.

I had never removed Rasamee’s personal information from my laptop. Usually the parting of ways between me and a Thai lady leaves me in a vindictive mood, which I give expression to by deleting her from my files. But Rasamee was not that way and I’d always felt a measure of goodwill towards her. This meant I still had the woman’s bank account number and with her fifty-first birthday coming up a month after the farm sale closed, making me a rich man, a special present seemed like a fine idea.

As noted in another post, here in Thailand one can transfer money from their savings account to another bank through an ATM. So in the week leading up to Rasamee’s birthday, I did a number of transactions totaling three hundred thousand baht (@ $8,500) to be deposited in her account. It was all done anonymously as I had no interest in having her back in my life, reprising her role as a dogged, slightly annoying email buddy. However I doubt she had any trouble figuring out who was behind all this. I only regret that I could not be there to see her face when she noticed all the money. In the past when I’d “flashed my cash” I never got much of a reaction from her, but I suspect this time around it would have been a little different.

But why give so much? Three hundred thousand baht is akin to receiving a second prize award in the national lottery. It is because Rasamee is a decent person, someone who is good at heart. More than any of the other women I have befriended in this country (and after six years that number is now approaching the half century mark), she deserves the help. Being over fifty with two children, it’s unlikely there will ever be a man in her life again and Thailand can be brutal on single mothers. I am just making it a bit more pleasant for her.

This would turn out to be perhaps the easiest of my acts of generosity.

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