A tale of love and sorrow

IT’S A TALE along the lines of the Erich Segal’s 1970 best-seller “Love Story”, the romantic, funny yet tragic novel that stayed on the New York Times best-seller’s list for more than 40 weeks, was translated into 20 languages and made into a major movie starring Ryan O’Neal and Ali Macgraw.
Sadly though, the newly released book penned by Tanaporn Tangchareonmankong, “Lots of Love – The 7,300 Days We Loved Each Other” is not fiction but the true-life tale of an ordinary couple struck by a similar tragedy. Like “Love Story”, it’s romantic, funny and tearjerkingly sad, filling the reader with sympathy yet also with hope.
Tanaporn, or Muay as she is known to her friends, first met Ittirit “Itt” Prakhamthong, the former editor-in-chief of Cycling Plus Thailand, 20 years ago at work. They started living together soon afterwards and made an attractive couple, Itt’s Northeastern looks contrasting with Tanaporn’s Chinese heritage. Obviously happy just to be together, they sometimes struck a slightly envious chord with their friends, especially those whose own relationships were travelling through turbulent times. That happiness came to an end in August last year, when Itt passed away from the lymphatic cancer that had been diagnosed just four months earlier.
 The book is also a testament to Tanaporn’s talent for writing. A feature editor at Elle Decoration magazine and a former reporter for The Nation, she conjures up mental images of their affection for each other and their lives together as clearly as if these were in illustrated form.
“I was afraid my story would be too personal,” she says. “Truth be told, I have written this book to honour Itt’s dream and his passion. He was always encouraging me to write a book but I never thought that my first book would be about us.
“It is not a memorial book though. It may be sad, but there is also hope. As Itt used to say, ‘passion is an inspiration to live’. When I drive, I always lose my way. Itt did not drive, he sat beside me and told me the right way to go. I know I have to live on.
“During the time of my deepest sorrow, I used to dig up Itt’s diary. Reading it I realised he was the one who liked to take notes in his beautiful handwriting. He would scribble poems and illustrate his thoughts with drawings, and so these journals became the graphics for the beginnings of each chapter,” she adds.
Chapter 14, “Hug” is very short at just two pages. It was also the first Tanaporn wrote, and is taken from a note scribbled by Itt – “Hug each other 7 days a week”. It describes how she misses his hugs.
She has continued to live in their home, a four-storey commercial building that is much too big for one person but which she loves.
“I cry anywhere and at anytime. There are so many details in a life as a couple and when one of you disappears, you know right away what is missing – opening the curtains, having breakfast, watering the plants, closing the door, walking to the bus stop. My friends tell me I should leave but there’s no point. The memories are still vivid in my heart and my head. I must live with his departure, with the moment when he died peacefully. Itt was always stronger than me, though, I cry all the time.”
With their days filled with professional tasks, travelling, childcare and domestic chores, all too many couples end up neglecting each other, albeit unintentionally. “Lots of Love” will remind both husbands and wives why they should take care of each other better, with respect and love, while they are still alive.
Tanaporn writes she’s is grateful that both she and Itt did remember to express their thanks to and love for each other. “Love is a generic term yet always special whether it is expressed verbally, in writing or just in an expression,” she notes in chapter 13.
Tanaporn and Ittirit’s words and thoughts will encourage readers who have gone through loss and perhaps also help them move on after the death of a loved one.
 “I still find it difficult to answer when someone asks me how I am. I don’t know. I’m no longer knocked sideways by grief but I can’t go as far as to say I’m happy. Since he has gone, my feelings change from one moment to the next. What I have learned though is to go with flow, to cry when I’m sad, laugh when I’m happy, go to bed when I’m sleepy and eat when I’m hungry,” she writes.
She also treasures two of the notes penned by Itt. One of these, “We’ll remember the blooming or the withering day”, was written soon after he learned he had cancer. The second “Being born and living is a miracle, to love and giving love to others is even more of a miracle. It makes us happy every second no matter where we are on earth”, is an extract from his pocket book “The Day of Life Journey”.
And she is still keeping Itt around by maintaining payments to his mobile phone service provider and tagging him on Facebook,
“I’m simply not ready to let go,” she says.

 BETWEEN THE LINES
- “Lots of Love – The 7,300 Days We Loved Each Other” is published by A Book. It’s in shops for Bt235.
- For more details, check www.GoDayPoets.com.