My Excuse

     So it's been awhile. Do I still have any loyal readers out there? In any case, I miss writing. And, I don't like any of my excuses for not writing. Dry spell, inspirational deficiency, stress, too busy with work, etc. The list goes on. I call myself a writer? I dare to declare that one of my interests is writing? I'm phony, a fake! I'm so ashamed. To think, I flew all the way to NorCal to attend an awards banquet for a piece of writing I did. I should be punished! Not awarded! A week and a half ago, however, on a Saturday morning, I woke up, snuck out of bed quietly trying not to wake the kids in our apartment that's as big as my boss' office, and swept my trusty and loyal laptop off its dusty shelf, caressed him, pressed his power button, and rekindled that love affair I shared so often in Vietnam with my ex-laptop. I opened up Microsoft Word, gathered my interview notes I took in mid-January of a Vietnamese hub making local news in the Nation's Capitol, and just did it: I wrote. My fingers swiftly stroked and tapped at the familiar keys. In less than an hour, a draft was produced and sent off to my editor and co-award-winning writer.

The Awards Banquet

     Thanks to Michael for being an awesome host and Jules being once again a wonderful friend to lean on, I had a really good time getting away from work and celebrating. I didn't know we had to have a speech prepared. I didn't even know our award category was "save the best for last". I didn't want to speak. Neither did Jules. So, during our dinner, Vivian drafted the speech on a receipt in her lap. Since Cuong was in Miami for a conference, he asked me to put him on speakerphone during the reception. When our names were called, we proceeded to the stage, and were surprised even more by the awards being handed to us. Juggling our awards and plaque, we stood on stage, our eyes and cheeks twitching as we tried mightily to smile at the camera flashes. Finally, it was our turn to take the podium, and Viv gracefully delivered the speech. I'm really glad I didn't bail on the event like I originally planned. The award came by surprise - and with the lack of motivation and confidence I've had lately, it was an affirmation to me that, "hey, I'm an OK kid after all." Something mom and dad can be proud of.

Ong Noi

    My paternal grandfather is dying of cancer. He's on his deathbed. I keep having these recurring flashback moments of the end of his wife's life, my grandmother. It's so painful to see him.

One time I visited him, he had hollow cheeks and his skin, and wrinkled to a leathered texture from sun damage and smoking, was the color of green. It scared me.

More recently on a last minute trip back, I saw him and his color came back to that familiar dark, tanned leather face, cheeks filled in slightly, but bed-stricken with an oxygen tank by his side, and a walker and a wheel-chair a couple of footsteps away. I held his hand during my recent visit. That was the first time I really touched him, save for the occasional pats on the shoulder when greeting him at family gatherings and other visits.  For a long time since being diagnosed with cancer, he had refused taking his pills and let alone any Chinese herbal remedies regularly.  During the weekend I was there I witnessed his refusal as a few of his children tried or insisted on giving him his pills. Beside him on the nightstand, were one of three dim lamps, and a monitor used generally for parents of newborns who have a monitor in the baby’s crib and a receiver in the main room of the house. The television was on and a DVD of a Chinese movie played, showing actors flying and fighting in the air while their long, braided hair was wrapped neatly around their necks. The sound on the TV was low because he wanted it that way. Each time an uncle or aunt came into the bedroom and ask if he wanted the volume on the TV raised, he would shake his head, his eyes fixed straight ahead into nothing, or the TV screen.

In and out of the room my aunts, uncles and cousins went.  In and out they went, and so did their offers for me to leave and join them for some che.  But I couldn't get myself to leave his side. I sat with him on a bed situated next to his bed, holding his hand. I wanted to tell him I just returned from San Jose receiving a journalism award. I wanted to tell him I was living in Washington, D.C. working for a TV station. I wanted to say so much. But the truth is, I've never been close to him for one reason or another. I can blame the others, my uncles and aunts, but it's no use to point any fingers. The damage is done. The time has passed. And, the truth is, while he was healthy and younger, even alive with his wife, my grandmother who suffered a great deal before passing, my grandfather frightened me. He even angered me at times. He'd say the most inappropriate things as a father, grandfather and husband to my parents and even to my siblings and me. He had even disgusted me, even after my grandmother died.

I remember one night a long time ago when he had returned from the hospital following a surgery. My family wanted to visit him to see how he was doing. Apparently that Saturday night, all of my uncles, aunts and cousins were at my grandparents' house, too. After visiting with my grandfather for a while in his bedroom, we went into downstairs living room to sit with one of my aunts and a few of my cousins who were watching TV and looking through some photo albums.  The photos were filled with photos of my cousins and aunts and uncles.  None were of my sister, brother or me.  None were of my parents.  My dad’s brothers and three sisters were gathered around the large dining table upstairs next to the hallway leading to my grandparents’ bedroom.  My grandmother stood at the top of the shallow stairs above us and invited us to eat. But, my father first, then my mom in unison joined him in an obedient manner you expect children must behave before their elders.  They replied we had already eaten dinner before arriving and that we were all right and wanted to simply visit my grandfather and grandmother. For whatever reason, she raised her voice and did not respond well, saying if we wanted to come visit, we should visit with a more cheerful disposition. After raising her voice suddenly with her accusation, my dad's brothers and sisters came running downstairs yelling at my parents, grabbing at my dad, got into my mom's face waving their stiff hands in the stern position in which you would slap a person in the face, one of my eldest cousins tried taking a swing of his fist at my sister... My stomach turned. My head spun. My heart shook. I was so confused and scared in my mind, but my body for some reason was frozen. It was as if concrete was poured all over my legs and I couldn't move. My body would not react. The screaming and my tall uncles towering over their elder brother like a mob was so loud I couldn't even hear a word they said. Somehow, I broke out of that hypnotic confusion and I leapt in between one of my aunts who had grabbed my mom's wrist violently and I tore her hand off of my mom. The mob pushed, screamed and intimidated us right out of the front door. All the while my cousins stood in the living room downstairs looking up in utter confusion and horror. My body trembled for hours after that. All my family wanted was simply to visit my grandfather because we were concerned.

Another time, during my elder cousin's wedding, the same cousin who threw his fast at my sister's face (she wasn't hurt thankfully because her 5'11" friend stood in between them), my grandfather did an inappropriate thing. Maybe I overreacted. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it didn't happen at all. But during the dancing portion of the wedding, I was sitting at one of the tables near the back of the room alone. My grandfather approached, asked me whatever it was a grandfather asks his grandkids, began tapping me on my shoulder, then my back and he put his hand inside my dress, deep behind my neck, far enough perhaps that chills ran up my back. I froze. I squirmed and moved away in my chair to another. After that I only remember he left me there sitting alone again. That event disgusted me. But maybe my grotesque imagination conjured it all up. Perhaps my imagination exaggerated the entire thing. I can't remember anymore. I just have a memory that frightened and still frighten me.

My grandfather, my parents told me, was actually from a less than wealthy family who sold cigarettes or something, a stark contrast to my grandmother and her family. Apparently he came by my grandmother's family's storefront in Vietnam often enough that she somehow became enamored by him, perhaps pitying him a bit, and then married him. They had two kids together who died early in childhood or during a miscarriage before having my dad and uncles and aunts. In the lineage, my dad is third oldest. They had a total of ten kids. I now have about 20 to 30 something cousins, cousins that I sometimes need to think twice about before recalling their names.

Anyway, my grandfather was a cobbler. I tell friends my shoe obsession is in my blood because of my grandfather's occupation. I remember in a room past the downstairs living room of his single-story house in East San Diego, he had a room solely for his shoe repairs. It smelled of leather, shoeshine and adhesives for leather and shoes. Leather soles and heels were stacked everywhere. Trimmed leather pieces and shavings covered the shelves and parts of the ground. It was dim in that room with some lighting and it felt cooler with the concrete floor. Everywhere else in the house was a dark, musty cranberry carpet and white tile.  My cousins and I used to gamble in that room on Tet. We used to play games in that tiny room too. It’s about half the size of a child’s average-sized bedroom. If you walk outside of the glass slide door of his shoe room, you enter my grandparents' backyard. It was the backdrop of many amazing make-believe games I shared with my cousins when we were all in elementary school. He had huge cages where he kept tiny exotic birds with yellow and green feathers. He had fish in his pond, and in the island of that circular pond were statues of Asian fishermen.  The statues wore long white pointy beards and white hair wearing dark pants rolled up just below their knees with blue-grey button-up shirts carrying wooden fishing polls. A red wooden bridge hovered over the center of the pond. That bridge would be the stage for many posed photographs of my girl cousins and me. I distinctly remember photos of us wearing our frilly white and pink floral dresses with ribbons in our hair standing in a line from tallest to shortest, me being the shortest on the bridge. Beyond that were red bricks combined with concrete all around with plants in shiny clay pots and trees. There was also hill decorated with more Asian sculptures. They also had benches and tables outside where we'd sit and eat lots of the times. Near the benches and tables was an overhanging with this papery, magenta leafed plant that rested above the main glass slide door that led into the downstairs living room.  A bed of papery, magenta petals was strewn about on the ground. The garden wasn't perfectly maintained because there were corners I avoided because I was scared of the potential bugs and spider webs lurking there, but nonetheless, it served as an adventurous setting for us.

Back in Vietnam, my grandparents owned shoe stores. Where the grand Rex Hotel sits today in Saigon is the exact location of their main storefront, which I believe was eventually managed by my dad's older brother. A couple of blocks down, another one of their storefronts in Vietnam still hasn't completely faded into war history just yet. Now a jewelry store, the old wooden sign above the jewelry store is the very same sign my grandfather used for his shoe store. It reads, "Duc Minh" in faded paint and worn out wood. When my parents took me to that storefront location in Saigon, I could almost see them as young twenty-something’s walking as they did on that sidewalk. I could see my dad, a handsome, but skinny, unshy man smiling with his dark hair, and my mom with her subtle, but sexy cat-like eyes and lips barely showing a smile, a bashful, obedient daughter and wife looking to her left with her long, shiny black hair tied back in a low pony-tail.

In Vietnam, my grandparents were wealthy and established in District 4 of Saigon. Now, my grandfather is lying there in the hospital bed temporarily placed in my aunt's house in Escondido. His tiny frame lies there, in a fragile state. His eyes look misty constantly, lost, a grey, marble-like blue. I just sat there and held his hand. Aunts, uncles and cousins arrived and continued to streams in and out of the bedroom, eventually heading to the family room to sit with each other watching a video marketing Saigon today to Viet-Kieu and eating che. All I could do was sit with my grandfather silently holding his hand. When it was time to take his pills, he refused. My aunt told me in her surrendered voice that it's so difficult to get him to take his medication regularly. He's so difficult. That's your grandfather, she'd say. She'd leave the glass of water beside his bedside and let it slip for now, but said to him like to a child that'd she'd return in the hour to make sure he takes it then. He'd nod, staring off into space, or at the TV. I stood up, asked my grandfather why he refused his medicine even though I knew he wouldn't answer.  I decided to contribute to the insistence of his children, but this time, without a fight, he nodded his head in agreement, still staring into the TV like a child mesmerized by cartoon images. My aunt looks at me and paused.  She made a point that he never takes his medicine, but today he was willing to take it from me. She hands me his pill, I take his mug of water in my other hand and adjust the straw. Without any kind of refusal he opens his mouth like an innocent child opening his mouth to his mother expecting to be fed. I place the pill and the straw in his mouth. Mission accomplished…for this hour at least.

Sometimes he'd close his eyes, and I'd see his eyes water. I'd ask him if he wanted me to leave him alone to sleep and he'd shake his head and then open them again wet from his tears. Is he crying? Or are his eyes just watery? I sit and try to speak. Every time I opened my mouth my felt choked. I just looked at him as he stared at the TV. His hand was leathery, just like his face, and tanned. It was shaky every time he moved it. I have never seen his hands so shaky before. He'd close his eyes again. I see tears forming in the corners of his eyes. Perhaps he's tired this time. I ask him again if he wants to be left alone to rest, and he shakes his head. He opens his eyes again with tears filled in them. Is he crying? Why is it so silent? Ong Noi, I went to San Jose last week. I'd swallow. I went there to attend an awards banquet with editors and writers. My nose tingled. Famous politicians attended the ceremony, too. My neck and back tensed. I even met a very famous Vietnamese-American writer. Each breathe trembled. I was awarded with money in addition to my plaque and certificates signed by famous American politicians. My chest tightened so hard my lungs felt like they were pushing against my throat. I wrote about the concerns of the young generation of Vietnamese who voted in the 2004 presidential elections. He'd move his hand with mine in it to the top of his chest. I was worried my hand would be too heavy and uncomfortable, so I wouldn't completely rest my hand in his, but I would hold back my weight. I live in Washington, D.C. where the American President lives. It's really cold there, but I'm learning a lot. And, I miss my family and friends and...you. Please don't die. Please don't die yet. You're lying here like your wife did. Please don't die yet. Please wait until I can return to visit at least. Please don't go. We've never had a chance to be close. You don't even know me, do you? I don't even know you. Tell me everything. Tell me what it was like to live in Vietnam and what it was like to migrate to the US. Tell me everything. Would you like to get to know me? I want to tell you everything. Please don't go. You have to wait and be there for me when I get married. The thing is, you can't leave yet. Ba Noi left with so much unsaid and so much unfinished. You can't do the same. Ba Noi left, I have no Ba Ngoai, I only have you and Ong Ngoai. Why did you do this to yourself? Why did you smoke? Why? Why didn't you take better care of yourself? Why couldn’t you be a better person? This weekend is my grandfather's mother's memorial. My aunts, uncles and parents are planning a get-together for the memorial. It's a chance to remember her and to be with my grandfather. I won't be attending. I'll be here, though. Thinking of my family. Mostly of my dad and my grandfather. Mostly because of my dad. It's not fair. My dad deserves so much better from his brothers and sisters. He has only had his wife and children in his life - not even did he belong to his own family. They wouldn't let him belong. He was nothing in their eyes. Not a loyal son. Not a loyal and giving brother. Not anything. He sacrificed so much. When his family got plane tickets to exit Vietnam before April 30, he entered the plane with his parents, up until it was time to take-off, when he said his goodbyes to his family so that he can return as the loyal husband and father to my mom and brother and sister. They could abandon him. They can abandon his wife and children. But he wasn't going to abandon them. I deeply hope my dad feels like he belongs with us always.