...
when i was young, my father was my stability. my dad dropped me
off and picked me up from school every day. my mom was frequently
working and traveling. i remember constantly crying asking when
she would be back. and my dad would console me and play blocks or
marbles with me.
one of the most memorable things i can recall from childhood is
learning to ride a bike. he took me to the bike shop (the off ramp
on el camino). i picked out a silver chrome bike with a green
goblin thing on the handlebar with velcro flame decals that said
“gremlin” on them. but my father refused to get me training
wheels. i said what? everyone else has it, that’s how you learn
how to bike? and he said “no. training wheels will let you wobble.
you need to learn to be stable.” i must have been 5 years old. we
got home and he strapped all the knee, elbow, wrist pads on me —
blue and fuzzy bear shaped ones. slapped a helmet on my head and
pulled the strap tight. then he held me and let me sit on the
bike. i felt the balance, new and daunting. then he said, pedal.
immediately i tipped over, plummeting towards the asphalt. he
caught me. “you’re going to fall. but i have you.” he then pushed
me forward on the bike, giving me momentum, and said “pedal.” i
coasted a few feet and pedaled and tipped over into his running
arms. the feeling of stable momentum carrying me forward locked
into my inner ear. i needed stability or i’d fall.
within an hour i was swerving through the trash can obstacle
course he had laid out on the suburban streets, gliding with glee.
my dad was right, training wheels would have taught me that
wobbling is okay.
... (ask me if you want to read the rest)
I’m kind of shocked at how few funerals my friends have been to.
It seems like the average number is 0-2. I’m 24. I’ve been to 5
funerals for family members that I can remember. More if we’re
counting non-family funerals. Tomorrow will be 6.
One of the things I’ve observed or participated in is the creation
of the funeral presentations. Usually a video or slideshow. When
I’ve been part of making it, it’s an incredible way to process
grief. It’s a form of reminiscing and discovery — of uncovering
memories you forgot you had. And because it is a communal and
collaborative creation, it bonds you to your loved ones. “Oh you
went on a trip to the grand canyon with him, how was it?” “Oh he
likes this song? I love this band, I had no idea.”
I can’t help but think that that would be a killer Apple ad.
FaceTime at grandpa’s hospice center. iPhotos sorted by person,
place…shared albums, memories and compilations. Find all the old
voice notes that they sent you, singing you happy birthday “is
this on? hello?”. Pull it into iMovie. Crowd around the Mac,
scroll through iPad and iPhones and AirDrop pics and vids. Pick
songs to include in iMovie via Apple Music. Share it out on
Airplay at the funeral home as the crowd looks up, faces lit and
sparkling from the welling in their eyes.
I’m not sure why my mind goes to an Apple ad. Maybe because the
capitalist in me has somehow anchored some of my most emotional
beautiful moments to a brand with heartwrenching commercials. Or
maybe that in communal grieving through collaborative creation and
curation, I’ve attained the ultimate aspiration — the emotional
ideal sold to us by Apple which is supposedly unattainable.
I wondered if it was cultural that I’ve been to so many funerals.
Maybe the Vietnamese just have a penchant for grief, the way our
poetry and language ring with a melancholy echo and gentle
pleading whine. A nation napalmed and diaspora-ed to the edges of
the earth until all it could do was hold itself together through
collective wailing. But my Vietnamese friends have not gone to as
many funerals as I have.
I have wondered if I am cursed, if death followed me through my
life, collecting the last breaths of my family members after I had
recently visited them. First was Co Ba, who I saw a month or two
before she died (I think?). Once, I visited Ba Ngoai in my dreams
and she whispered to me “It’s time to say goodbye” and I woke up
the next morning to the news of her death. That one Christmas when
I went to see Chu Hung for the first time in years and he had a
mysterious aneurysm a month after I left. Or when I saw Abu the
Christmas after and she had a heart attack the day I left. Or when
I celebrated Lunar NY with Ong Ngoai after finally wanting to
visit him again, and he passed in his sleep two weeks later. A
strange sense of responsibility lurking in the implication of my
superstition. All coincidence, I suppose.
Whatever the case, here I am. #6. Another notch in my heart. Body
ody ody ody ody ody. A body count higher than my body count.
Strange, that death around me outweighs the act of making new
life. (Guess I need to get my body count higher?).
I don’t presume to be uniquely suffering from an abundance of
death, not when all 7 of my other grandfather’s siblings died and
he was the only one left. But in an era of modern medicine…the
fact remains: I’m on my 6th funeral and none of my friends have
cleared 2. So I’m left asking: why? Why me? Why my family? Why why
why, whining in my lilting, pleading, questioning mother tongue
where two of the five diacritic marks indicate the sliding upwards
intonation of asking a question. (One of the marks is literally
called “the asking symbol”). A language designed to ask. And in
every additional funeral, I keep searching for the answers.
only when you’re still can you see the motion around you
only when you’re still can you see the tiny bugs swarming in front
of you
only when you’re still can you see the clouds drifting ever so
imperceptibly past you as you stare up at the wispy continents, a
mirror reflection of the continental plates on 2x speed, floating
by you
only when you’re still do you hear the quiet chugging of a far off
train slapping on the tracks, the bingitybong of the local cow
herd ringing their bells coming home, the cars on the highway
echoing against the mountains
(to towering mountain) how bashful are you to hide your face in
the misty clouds
he dropped a sea trawler into the depths of my mind, dredging up
the dormant emotions that had settled and nestled themselves into
the very foundational sediment of my consciousness, pulling it up
and up and up towards the glimmering light and ripping it free
into the glaring sun to inspect like a prized lobster.
sitting in the rain at a red light, the windshield wipers making
the noise that pacman makes, a clear view of the world briefly, as
the raindrops are wiped away, 1 second of clarity, until the view
slowly turns into a monet painting, then water colors, then a
refractive haze of light. then clarity again.
incense billowing in swirling puffs as if labored ragged breaths
echoing
i live lifetimes in my sleep