My Mother and Father Final Resting Places

Viet Nam was created by this beautiful story of the dragon meeting this beautiful water maiden who realized that they no longer could be together (after she had borne him 100 eggs) and became separated with the dragon going back to the mountains and she returning to the sea leaving the eldest to be the first King of Viet Nam (Âu Cơ - Wikipedia)

Viet Nam is always about a story of separation and creation thru wars and peace, of sadness and happiness, of fighting and forgiveness, apart then reunite again.

I remember how much my father loved my mother knowing that she had to leave before Saigon was fallen. Mustering all the political connection he had, he managed to get her one of the last official tourist visa from the dying South Vietnamese regime to get her on a flight to visit my sister and brother who were studying in Japan and to help plan for my sister's upcoming wedding to my brother-in-law. He knew with the last days coming when he was planning to escape the city with his ship captain friend down the river Mekong, my mother wouldn't be able to take on the trip emotionally and physically. Not with her own family, her father and brothers, scattered all over the Southern villages far from Saigon. There wouldn't be enough time to make a snap decision to jump on a ship to leave the country with everyone together. My mother was reluctant to leave my father and I but I promised her that I would go to Saigon market with the house helper to help with the food shopping. She had no idea that she was leaving Viet Nam for the last time when she boarded the plane and saw everyone were sobbing and crying. That was April 24th, 1975.

I kept my promise and was very helpful with the house helper to manage the household while my father was frantically (unbeknownst to me then) finding way to form a new government to appease the pending invasion. Being the chief dentist at Saigon Central hospital with many international patients, one of those was an American intelligent officer who privately told him that if he heard White Christmas playing on the radio, it would be the signal that the Americans would not be returning to Viet Nam and it would be time to leave. The 5th fleet Carrier battle group will remain in international water not to enter Viet Nam but will be there only to pick up refugees coming out.

April 28th 1975, I was so happy to have the freedom to go the Central market all by myself to shop and occasionally feasted on my favorite delicacies such as hot vit lon (duck seeds). It was afternoon when I came home and saw that many of my father's many political friends were also there. At 6pm, there was this loudest sound I had ever heard. I couldn't tell if it was near or far from our house. The battle for Saigon had begun.

April 29th 1975, I stopped my father from backing the car out of the garage to go to the hospital having to answer the call from the government that all official workers must return to work despite the curfew from the night before. My father's ship captain had called and said that White Christmas was playing on the radio and we had only 2 hours.

I walked by my father's dental office, a place he was so proud to having recently upgraded w the most modernized machines from abroad, and briefly saw his back behind me preparing for a medical red bag w all the dental instruments to bring on the ship. His entire livelihood was to be packed into this tiny little red bag. He angrily told me to leave everything behind including the stack of photo family albums that I was showing him. The end was near and no time for past sentiments. All his life, he always regrets for saying those words to me.

April 30th 1975, Saigon fell quickly and his brothers (my uncles) from the invasion troop would later come to look for him as they had done 20 years earlier in Ha Noi when the French had lost Dien Bien Phu, but we had already left the day before on the ship of my father's friend 2 weeks later from Guam, we called Japan (Last days of Saigon)

In 1992, my father and I returned to Viet Nam so he could reunite with his brothers and sisters whom he had left in 1950 with my mother to study dentistry in Ha Noi. My father, as a Nationalist, had fought the French all his life for Viet Nam's independence but he broke my grandfather's heart when he decided to create his family with my mother and not join him and Ho Chi Minh in the resistance zone. He had chosen love over war.

When he passed away, I brough him home so his brothers and sisters could now finally take care of him. He now sleeps by the feet of his parents in the village that he had saved from the French who had wanted to burn it down for revenge.

When my mother passed away, she chose water to be her lasting place as a gateway to impermanence.

They both are now together in my painting and in my heart.