At last night's memorial service

Thank you to the five police officers from the 3rd Precinct and to 60 of Ped's friends and family who attended last night's celebration Ped's life on the I-94 and Riverside off ramp. Channel 5 has a video of us at the restaurant.

The walk was calming because we could feel Ped's presence, but we could not stop our tears when we got to the site of where Ped died. Here are some pictures from last night that tell the story better than I can.

Ped's mother and father

close up of flowers

more flowers

11:08 pm

11:08 pm, August 23, 2011

I have not been to the I-94 Riverside Avenue off ramp since August 24 of last year. I went to it eight times that day, but have not been back since. I do not take that exit, and if I drive by I look away as I go by. For me, it is a place of sadness and death.

Tonight is the first anniversary of Ped's death and I will visit the exit ramp tonight at 11:08 to pay my respects.

Each day at the restaurant I am reminded of Ped's life and how he lived. I haven't slept for three days now thinking about going back tonight to where he died.

Ped, I still miss you every day.

VOTE FOR DEBORAH RUSSELL FOR JUDGE

Deborah Russell, the hard working prosecutor who put Amy Senser in prison, is running for District Court Judge. Her campaign Facebook page is here, and her campaign website is here.

I am not a resident of Minneapolis, but I strongly support Deborah and encourage True Thai's Minneapolis customers to consider voting for her in today's primary election.

Aung Thu Bo, Rest in Peace

Another tragedy in the extended True Thai family as our long-time cook Saw's 19-year-old brother, Aung Thu Bo, was senselessly murdered last Friday. Mara Gottfried has the story at the Pioneer Press.

Aung was a computer engineering student and worked part-time at Lyngblomsten Care Center in St. Paul and in the Hamline University computer lab. Like Ped, Aung gave his paychecks to his family.

The Bo family are Burmese refugees, all of whom lived for a while in a refugee camp in Thailand before coming the United States.

Our deepest condolences to the Bo family and all of Aung's friends.

True Thai's connection to Olympic Gold!

No, True Thai does not have any connection to Team USA's Olympic basketball team. But my weightlifting trainer Katie knows Gyorgy Szalai, and he trained Behdad Salimikordasiabi, the 370-pound Iranian weightlifter who won the Gold medal in the men's 105+ kg. class.

Behdad lifted 455 kg. or 2.7 times his own weight. Try multiplying your weight by 2.7. Do you think you could lift that much weight? I would have to lift 260 lbs. to match what Behdad did. I do not think I will ever lift 260 lbs., but if I do, I will be sure to let you know.

How likely is it that I will ever be able to lift 260 lbs.? The smallest women's weight class is 48 kg. (105 lbs.).  This year the Gold medal winner, Wang Mingjuan of China, lifted 205 kg. (451 lbs.). That's 4.3 times her own weight! I think that is very impressive for someone my height. I do not think I will try to beat her record.

TRUE THAI DELIVERS

For a little while now we have been doing deliveries in the Seward neighborhood. We did not know if deliveries would be popular (they are!).

The minimum order is $25 but we'll bring it straight to your doorstep for lunch, dinner or any time we're open. This is proving to be very popular with some customers and our staff, all of whom want to make the deliveries — but we'll see how enthusiastic they are when winter comes!

Anniversaries

True Thai turns ten this fall, but we're just newcomers to the Seward neighborhood. This Saturday the Seward Co-op will celebrate its 40th anniversary! Wow, that's a lot of organic fruit and vegetables.

Lots of fun this Saturday from Fiddles on Fire to The Bunny Clogs as well as The Brass Messengers,  with Malamanya and Willie Murphy thrown in for good measure. There may even be a few hippies there if you have small children who'd like to see one close up!

As well as food, arts, radio stations, bicycles and all the other usual Seward stuff.

Do this in remembrance of me

In the days before the sentencing hearing, I heard that Amy Senser had tattooed Anousone's name on her wrist. The rumor was true. You could only see a little bit of it during the hearing, but afterwards her attorney, Eric Nelson, acknowledged that she had gotten the tattoo to help her remember Anousone always. I do not think Mrs. Senser realizes how appropriate that was.

In Thai, Anousone means remembrance or souvenir. It means the same in Lao, but for Lao people there is a very heavy spiritual significance attached to the word anousone. Not souvenir like a postcard, but souvenir like when a veteran points to a scar and calls it his souvenir from the war. The picture of Marines at Iwo Jima would be an example of something Lao people would call anousone.

Anousone is not a traditional Lao name. It was popular during the war years, however, because there was so much to remember. So many lives were lost, so many families lost fathers, sons and brothers that it seemed natural to many to name their baby Anousone, or remembrance.

I should also probably mention that Anousone liked his name so much that he had the letter A tattooed on his left forearm.

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I wrote that a while ago, but did not post it because it was clear that most of you felt that the sentencing put closure on this case. But for those of you who are law or law enforcement students, I wanted to share with you this posting for a free training that you can earn POST or CLE credits for.

Free training August 2nd: Navigating Through the Challenges of CVH/CVO Cases
MAC and MADD are hosting a free training on August 2, 2012 from 12:30-4:00 (registration begins at 12:00) in St. Paul at the Hiway Federal Credit
Union – Administration Building, 840 Westminster Street.  

The speakers include Deborah Russell, the Assistant Hennepin County Attorney who prosecuted Amy Senser; Sgt. Dan Beasley, Minnesota State Patrol; and Kelly Nicholson, Victim Witness Supervisor, Dakota County Attorney’s Office.  POST and CLE
credits have been applied for.  Please register by July 30th at:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhMuH9Aq72fedGNsLVJIZGxub1Axcm9iREhUX21vdHc

I do not think you have to be a law or law enforcement student to attend.

Olympics time

This is me with my new workout buddy, Katie. She is the most physically fit woman I have ever met. That is not surprising because her father was Peter Baczako, an Olympic weight lifter from Hungary.

Most men I know would love to have six-pack abs. Katie has a twelve-pack! She and her family have eaten many times at True Thai now, and each time they stop in heads turn as she walks by.

Most years when the Olympics are on TV,  I just watch the gymnastics, but this year I'm going to watch as much of the weightlifting competition as possible. Yes, Anna has been lifting weights!

I work out with Katie's father in law, Csaba, too. That's him in the picture below. He is not in quite as good a shape as Katie, but he's pretty strong.

If you work out and are on a special diet, I can show you which True Thai appetizers and entrees are high in protein and low in carbs. But since I'm only at the restaurant at night, feel free to email me and I'll get back to you with some recommendations. It's probably best to email me before you go to the restaurant as I don't check my email as often as I should.

Best Thai, part XXXI

Thank you to all of you who voted in Vitamn's The List of Lists 2012. Thanks to you, True Thai Restaurant was named The Best Thai Restaurant in the Twin Cities!

Our tenth anniversary is coming up this fall, and we've won almost three awards a year since starting up in November of 2002. Since then, True Thai has grown our menu, expanded our restaurant, and increased the love Minnesotans have to for Thai food.

Fruit for thought

Because David Hanners mentioned it, here is a picture of the basket of fruit that Amy Senser dropped off at the restaurant on Fathers Day night.

The angle doesn't really show you how large the basket was, but yes, that is a big pineapple buried in there.

Anousone loved to buy exotic fruit for his parents. He would bring it to them two, three times a week when he could find rambutan, longan, pomegranates or other fruit that would remind them of Laos. And he knew that half the fruit he brought them would be donated to the Wat Lao Buddhist temple in Farmington.

Keo Phanthavong, Anousone's mother, told me that the last fruit Anousone brought to her is still in her refrigerator freezer. After the sentencing, we all went to the cemetery to spend time with Anousone. Keo told me that on other trips she had seen a young Lao woman eating a mango with her mother, who is buried near Anousone's grave. We ate some fruit, and thought about Anousone.

Anousone's brother, Kono, now buys fruit for his parents. They still take half the fruit to the temple. It is good family tradition.

I have my own new tradition. Amy Senser's fruit basket did not make me want to forgive her, but I know that Anousone has forgiven her, God has forgiven her, and the Phanthavong family is grateful for Mrs. Senser's apology. So each night at 11:08 I stop what I am doing and I ask Anousone to help me pray for Amy Senser. I am not as forgiving as Ped was, and he gives me the strength to keep my promise to pray for Amy and her daughters. (I don't pray for Joe. He needs to apologize before I can pray for him.)

My last day at the trial

After the trial was over in May, I was asked to write a victim's statement to be read in court before Mrs. Senser was sentenced. Sunday I was told that my statement could not be read on Monday because I am not a relative of Ped's. Last night I prayed to Ped to let the judge read my letter and this morning he allowed the letter to be read last.

Cindi Phanthavong read the letter and broke down crying. When Cindi read, "Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal" Amy Senser began to cry. I looked around and even the reporters were crying. I could not believe how loud the crying in the courtroom was. 

Courtroom sketch shown by KSTP-TV

This is the statement I prepared for Judge Mabley to read to Amy Senser.

Dear Judge Mabley:

Before this trial began, I had never heard of Amy World. But I was very familiar with Anousone’s World, and the ways in which Anousone Phanthavong made my world a better place. Over the course of his nine years working with me, Anousone became my best friend, my right hand man, my rock. I miss him every day. We did not call it Anousone World, but the world was a very different place with Anousone in it. His love of others, his desire to serve others — this was the heart of Anousone’s world. Each day he challenged all of us to be better people.

Anousone cared only for others, not for himself. He was trusting and he was kind. He had the best heart. 

Amy Senser killed Anousone Phanthavong, but she did not take him from us.  His soul is with us.  In death, Anousone brought his friends and family together, even as Mrs. Senser’s crime tore her family apart. She lost this case, but the Phanthavongs did not win because Anousone is still dead. Mrs. Senser will eventually return home to her family, but Anousone will never return to us again.

I was raised to value and respect the lessons religions teach us. My cousin Peter is now a Roman Catholic Bishop. My  older sister Emile became a Mother Superior. I know that a good Catholic would forgive Mrs. Senser unconditionally and move on, but I am a Catholic who grew up surrounded by Theravada Buddhists. There are many Theravada Buddhists working at our restaurant. Anousone was one of them. Anousone and I had many, many conversations about all manner of things, and through him I acquired a deep appreciation of the Lord Buddha’s teachings on which Anousone relied in his daily life for guidance and support. Anousone believed in forgiveness, and I know that Anousone would want me to forgive Mrs. Senser.

Buddha said, “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.  I believe this statement to be true because each time I sat down to write this letter, I got very angry and wrote very angry words.  But each of those letters ended up in the wastebasket because Anousone would not want me to spend the rest of my life picking up hot coals. 

Anousone was a devout Buddhist who believed in forgiveness, but Buddhist forgiveness requires the cooperation of the person to be forgiven. Before a Buddhist can forgive someone who has wronged them, that person must acknowledge their wrong actions.  That person does not have to ask for forgiveness in order to receive it, but they must show that they are aware of their wrong behavior.  Buddhists do not believe it is helpful to forgive someone who refuses to acknowledge that they have done wrong. 

Mrs. Senser hit and killed Anousone Phanthavong with her car exactly 320 days ago. She has not once acknowledged Anousone died as the direct result of her actions. Instead Mrs. Senser dragged a grieving family through a year of lawyer games. Her attorney shared Anousone’s arrest record with the world, punishing the victim for allowing her to hit and kill him with her car. Mrs. Senser’s husband said he stood guard over their daughter’s home to protect her from the Phanthavongs. Well Mr. and Mrs. Senser have now seen all of the Phanthavongs in court. I wonder which of them frightened them most? Mrs. Senser’s husband is bigger than any two Phanthavongs put together.

I say to you Mrs. Senser that you killed Anousone Phanthavong. And your attorney smeared Anousone Phanthavong.

Yet, Mrs. Senser, you have not said anything to indicate that you accept responsibility for your actions, and have not in any way communicated to the Phanthavong family your remorse for your part in this tragedy. Every word the Phanthavongs and I have heard from you has been well-scripted, written by attorneys and rehearsed over and over again before being recited by you in this court.

When Anousone was alive, he was very protective of me and now I feel a duty to be protective of him. Mrs. Senser has done her worst, now let us see if she can do her best.

I do not want to hear any more of Mrs. Senser’s attorneys’ words. The family does not want to hear any more of her attorneys’ words. We are waiting to hear her words from her mouth telling us that she knows what she did. She does not have to ask us for forgiveness, we only ask that she acknowledge that actions taken by her were the direct cause of a man’s death. We do not believe that Mrs. Senser killed Anousone Phanthavong on purpose, but a jury has ruled that her actions — however unintentional — were the direct cause of his death. Can she now look us in the eye and admit to having done what she did? Will she admit that on the night of August 23, 2011, she struck and killed Anousone Phanthavong with her car? Or will she force the family and me to carry the burden of this wrongful death with us always?

On behalf of myself and Anousone’s family, we ask Mrs. Senser to let us forgive her.

It is within her power and hers alone to let us forgive her. Forgive her so that we can get on with our lives, remembering Anousone Phanthavong the man instead of lamenting Anousone Phanthavong the victim. Admit to us and this court what she has done and, in so doing, Mrs. Senser will not just free us from our grief, she will free herself and her own family from the terrible burden she carries.

Judge Mabley, please ask Mrs. Senser to do this for us, and I will pray to God for her and her family every night that she is away from them.


Anna P. Fieser
Friend of Anousone Phanthavong

As you probably know by now, Mrs. Senser was sentenced to 41 months in prison.

Just before the court session began, Mrs. Senser went up to Anousone's mother to apologize. I was out of the courtroom and did not see this, but when I came back Amy Senser was waiting for me outside of the courtroom and apologized to me as well, crying as she did so. I was shocked and walked away, then saw Anousone's mom crying.

We all entered the courtroom together and Gail Rosenblum wrote that we looked like we were there for a funeral. No one was there to celebrate. No one felt like a winner.

Justice has been done, but for the sake of her own family I pray that Amy Senser will decide later to come clean and explain what really happened that night. She is going to do the time, she might as well tell everyone why.