Lives Well-Lived

Jeff kissed her shoulders and fondled her breasts until his spent cock began to slide out of her rear channel. He then wiped up the mess from her rear end, turned her over to face him, smiled his pleasure at her, and went down on her for a leisurely round of muff-diving.

That first anal encounter was the start of a lifelong expansion to their sexual repertoire. They were missionaries of a sort, but they were by no means restricted to the missionary position...

* * * * * * * *

Sokren composed himself for a moment at the podium. "The two of them also introduced me to more important principles," he continued. "They never had children of their own. But they have many grandchildren, all across my beloved country. They are known as 'Ta' and 'Yee-ay' -- 'Grandfather' and 'Grandmother.' They demonstrated the wisdom of the biblical writer James: 'Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.' Jeff and Lynnette started a network of Cambodian orphanages, starting first in Siem Reap and expanding to include the one in Tbeng Meanchey where I grew up..."

* * * * * * * *

"Direct involvement -- yes. But sole responsibility -- no. This first experience with the kids has made me realize that it's not my calling -- nor is it what the country needs. Despite the hokey old analogy with the starfish," grumbled Jeff.

"What analogy?" queried Lynnette, seated at one of the cafeteria tables, twisting a young Khmer girl's straight black hair into two sets of braids. A generator-powered fan cascaded a gentle breeze across the screened-in room.

"You know -- where the guy is walking along a beach, picking up starfish and throwing them back into the ocean. The beach is covered with starfish. And another guy comes along and says, 'You'll never be able to pick up all those starfish. You can't possibly make a difference.' And the first guy throws another starfish back into the ocean and says, 'I made a difference to that one!'"

An adolescent Khmer boy sat down at the table on the other side of Lynnette. "Joom reeup soo-ah," she murmured in his direction, "hello, Haing." She looked back toward her husband. "So what are you saying?"

"That we need to be able to replicate and create sustainability in what we've done with the kids here in Siem Reap. We know how to raise the funding for capital costs and ongoing support for an orphanage; we can identify and select the kids in need; we know how to set up educational programs to supplement what they get in school, and to reach out to the surrounding community; we understand many of their physical and emotional and spiritual needs -- but we can't be the only ones throwing the starfish back into the ocean."

"So what do you propose?"

"That we bring others into the fray -- a small, dedicated cadre of starfish-throwers, who in turn teach others to become starfish-throwers. It ties straight back into recent Cambodian history. The Khmer Rouge devastated the country by targeting the leaders for execution. The country has never fully recovered. We need to identify and teach young adults who can become leaders. Not just leaders of orphanages, but leaders for society."

"And how do we find them?"

"We already have a lot of contacts, and we keep on networking to find more, just like we did to find claims administrators for the wildly successful charitable insurance venture with GARP."

"And how do we get them to throw starfish?" Lynette asked.

"We spend time with them, building their intellectual, emotional and spiritual DNA -- just like we do with the kids here at 'Haven of Grace,' who will eventually become leaders in their own right. And we learn from them at the same time, just like with the kids. But the reality is, we'll need to hire many of the young adults -- good will doesn't put food on the table. Some of them might become house parents, starting here with 'Haven of Grace' and spreading throughout the country as we start new orphanages. But principled leaders are needed in other arenas -- especially the government..."

* * * * * * * *

"My organization's methods are not without precedent," intoned Sokren solemnly, "it is their application that is somewhat unprecedented." The old woman leaned toward the stage and adjusted her hearing aid. An uncomfortable silence filled the crowded room.

"As Ta Jeff was fond of saying, 'Understanding the risk is not sufficient; acting on it is the moral imperative.' Nowhere is this truer than in the risk exposures giving rise to human suffering..."

* * * * * * * *

Shredded cardboard was strewn across the main table in the "Haven of Grace at Tbeng Meanchey" educational building. A glint of late evening sunlight cast long shadows across the room. The building's lone occupant was hunched over a set of instructions written in English. The various contents of the demolished box were lined up on the table in front of him. He turned his graying head as the door opened.

"Jeff, what sort of contraption is that?" asked Lynnette. The boy at her side walked toward the table.

"Joom ree-up soo-ah," smiled Jeff, "hello, Sokren. Hey, Lynnette!"

"I asked you a question, Jeff," she scolded good-naturedly.

"It's a bio-sand filter. It was originally developed by a fellow named David Manz. An old church buddy of mine introduced me to him by email. Dr. Manz co-founded a group in western Canada calling themselves the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology, or CAWST for short."

"And you, being the wise, not-so-young man that you are, recognize the need for affordable water and sanitation technology in a remote place like Tbeng Meanchey."

"Something like that. It's going to be the next global crisis."

"Water?"

"Yep. Oil shortages are nothing in comparison. With all the environmental shortcuts that poorer countries take in fostering development, their supplies of clean, fresh water will become virtually non-existent if nothing is done about it. Disease and death follow close behind. And my mortality studies become useless artifacts for their intended purpose."

"So what's one bio-sand filter going to do?"

"You're wanting to hear the starfish analogy again?"

"No. I'm figuring my brilliant hubby has a grander plan."

"Why do you smirk when you say that?" teased Jeff. The boy sitting beside him smiled silently in response. Jeff continued, "As a matter of fact, my dear bride, I'm taking a very close look at the technology, and trying to figure out a way to replicate it with everyday materials available here in Cambodia. I'll then check back with Dr. Manz to see if it holds water -- no pun intended."

Lynnette noticed that his boyish grin momentarily erased years from his facial features.

"And then what?" she queried.

"If successful, we can show the construction and use of them to the house parents at each of the 'Haven of Grace' centers, and to all of the leaders-in-training under the umbrella of our 'Preah Vihear Project.' They can host classes for the surrounding villages. Like Joe Namath's girlfriends on the old Breck shampoo commercials -- 'they tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on.' It just seeps across the country -- again, no pun intended."

This last comment earned him a well-placed jab of Lynnette's elbow into his mid-section.

He wrapped his arms around her, trapping the renegade elbow, and placed a tender peck on her pink, sunburned cheek. Young Sokren turned away in flushed embarrassment and fled the scene.

Jeff took Lynnette and placed her on his lap. "I feel that," she chided. His erection was pressing against her bottom through the layers of both their clothes.

"So what're you gonna do about it?" he asked hopefully.

"Depends on how much time you have," she deliberately tempted him.

"I think I can call it a day," he replied.

"Good," she cooed, "I was hoping I wouldn't have to settle for giving you a blow job and sending you back to work. I want to feel that thing inside me, where it can do some real damage."

They held hands as they walked toward their hut.

* * * * * * * *

"Enterprise risk management is not just about correlation matrices and copulas," continued Sokren, his voice beginning to rise with passion. "Diversification of risk can only go so far. When the remaining risk profile is still unacceptable, something further must be done. In the case of financial risks, that 'something' may involve hedging strategies. For insurance claims risks, it may involve reinsurance techniques. For the risks associated with systemic poverty and disease, the solution involves investment in human capital. That is what the Preah Vihear Project is all about -- identifying key societal risk exposures and training leaders to take action to mitigate them ..."

* * * * * * * *

"Hospitals -- and knowledgeable people to staff them," Jeff uttered through a hacking cough. He rolled over on the mat that he and Lynnette shared as a bed. She sat beside him, mopping his forehead with a moist cloth. Sokren stood next to her, holding a bucket of clean water, the product of a Cambodian-made bio-sand filter.

"Save your strength, dear," whispered Lynnette.

"Yes, Ta Jeff," added a teen-aged Sokren, "please."

"Just a minute -- let me speak what's on my mind. This isn't about me or my illness. It's about the future of the 'Preah Vihear Project.'"

"What do you want to say, dear?"

"They need not be Harvard or Yale graduates. Just sensible people with basic training in the key health risk exposures of the region -- how to avoid them, and how to treat them. What do you think, Sokren?"

"I think you are a wise man, Ta Jeff."

Jeff's eyes moved from Sokren to Lynnette. "You remember the quote from the Psalms?" he rasped, pausing briefly to cough again. "It's the heart of wisdom that matters -- not the number of years."

"Fifty-eight is too few," she replied quietly, gazing at him tenderly through misty eyes.

Sokren's sadness drove him from the hut. Lynnette climbed onto the mat beside her husband to comfort him. Even in his weakened state, Jeff began to massage her breasts through her satin top.

"Please, save your strength, dear," she pleaded with him.

"We agreed from the start that we'd never deny each other -- that's straight out of the Bible."

"I know, sweetheart. It's not that I don't WANT you. It's that I don't want to LOSE you."

"Then don't let me go until I'm gone."

She understood immediately. She silently acknowledged by her actions the truth in his words. Her hand began caressing his manhood through his loose-fitting pants. As dusk began to settle upon the room, Jeff's body coursed with a familiar response to his wife's nearness and availability.

Within minutes, they were both naked. She protected his strength by exerting the energy to remove not only her own but also his clothes. She straddled his erect penis after sucking it both to full expansion and for lubrication. His physical afflictions were momentarily forgotten as she sank down onto his dick, taking his full length and girth into her vagina. She began rocking up and down on his shaft as he massaged her breasts. She encouraged him to remain still while she gently fucked him. She was intent on taking the brunt of the physical exertion while sharing the explosion of mutual bliss.

* * * * * * * *

"The Preah Vihear Project's approach is not transactional in nature," exclaimed Sokren.

Many in the hotel crowd were now beginning to fidget. Sokren's speech was noticeably over the time allotted on the program agenda. But Lynnette sat listening in rapt attention, adjusting her hearing aid volume as Sokren's voice reached peaks and valleys, her mind straying back and forth between the past and the present.

"It is not a matter of purchasing options on the trading floor, or entering into a reinsurance agreement with the stroke of a pen," Sokren continued, "it is an investment in people, and it is measured in months, in years, in decades..."

* * * * * * * *

"Are you going to return home now that Jeff is gone?" asked Sophaly. She had become a good friend and confidante to Lynnette during their nationwide bio-sand filter campaign.

"This is home, Sophaly -- at least here on earth. Some day I'll join Jeff in our eternal home. But I'm here in Cambodia to stay for now. Jeff's body will be buried just outside the grounds of our first 'Haven of Grace' center in Siem Reap, and I'll be laid to rest beside him when my work on earth is done."

"And where will you stay in the meantime?"

"I'll go where I'm needed -- teaching, and continuing to learn. Jeff's and my vision for the 'Preah Vihear Project' was based on sustainability and replication from the start. He was so happy to see young Khmer leaders -- like you -- rising to meet the challenge."

Going, teaching, learning -- that was exactly what Lynnette had done for the better part of the next decade after Jeff's death. Among the young leaders that flourished under her tutelage was Sokren Prath. Sokren completed a degree in mathematics, and several years later qualified as a Fellow of the fledgling Cambodian Risk Management Association. He became one of its leaders, and successfully lobbied for its membership in GARP. And even before Lynnette's peripheral polyneuropathy confined her to a wheelchair, she had turned over the helm of the 'Preah Vihear Project' to Sokren.

He had built well on the foundation that Lynnette and Jeff had laid. He engaged other Khmer leaders to address a host of societal risk exposures facing Cambodia. He had even expanded the organization's influence beyond the boundaries of Cambodia, speaking at various lecture series hosted by other developing nations and writing for international journals. The practical application of risk management principles to ease human suffering began to spread like dandelion seeds in the wind.

And then, earlier this year, he had received the invitation to attend the GARP meeting in Geneva as a nominee for the Enterprise Risk Management award. He had immediately arranged to bring Lynnette with him...

* * * * * * * *

"And, finally, my fellow risk managers," concluded Sokren, "let me encourage you with these words. Your discipline can be used for more than your tradition dictates. It can be used to do a world of good. But you must be guided by your heart as well as your mind. Thank you, and good night." With that, Sokren ambled off the stage, polite applause from the dinner guests accompanying him.

The house lights came up slowly. As Sokren reached his table, Lynnette smiled up at him.

"I'm so proud of you, Sokren," she gushed, "Jeff would be, too." She noticed a tear forming in the corner of Sokren's eye. She reached out to touch his arm.

Suddenly, she could no longer clearly see his face. His countenance seemed a mere blur. She felt a tingling sensation in her left arm, her left leg, her face. Her jaw began to clench. She no longer saw Sokren's face, but Jeff's.

Sokren saw Lynnette begin to slump in her wheelchair. He knelt down and took her in his arms. "Yee-ay Lynnette, what's the matter?" he asked frantically, as a tattered photograph drifted toward the floor. Sokren recognized the man in the photo -- a man with fine lines creasing the corners of his cobalt blue eyes and smiling mouth, a man with flecks of silver salting his coarse mane of inky-black hair.

"The... wisdom of the heart... that matters," she slurred, "not... the number... of years..." She smiled at Sokren once again, her hand in his -- and then her hand was stilled.

It was time to go home.

THE END

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