A year after Thai day care center massacre, a family copes with their grief

By JINTAMAS SAKSORNCHAI
Associated Press

UTHAI SAWAN, Thailand (AP) — In a simply built concrete house a few yards off a dirt road in the rural town of Uthai Sawan in northeastern Thailand, Tawee Lasopha wakes up before sunrise to catch fish from his pond, then moves onto household chores with his wife, cooking breakfast and preparing his grandchildren for school. Under the blazing morning sun, he walks his two young grandsons out to the main road to wait for their school van before going about his day, picking vegetables and weeding. It’s an idyllic scene, and not so rare for the Thai countryside. But a dark cloud hangs over Tawee and his village. His family is forever scarred by the sudden loss of the boys’ mother, who died last year in Thailand’s deadliest mass killing, in which 36 people were killed, including 24 toddlers.