My Father

 

My Father - His well defined square jaws gave his face a stern look.  His bright eyes shined with unhidden pride.  Although his sociable, talkative, lively personality made him such a fun loving person, he was the most patient and diligent man I have ever known.  He worked so hard for so many years raising 10 children: 7 boys and 3 girls.  All his energy and efforts investing in the family had made us, his children, who we are today.

I remembered in 1965, the first time I saw father cried.  That evening, in pouring rain, an army jeep drove up to our door.  When the driver stopped, my father stepped out carrying my little brother Thao.  Walking straight into the house, he put Thao down on the hardwood daybed.  My little brother was motionless.  My father's gaze swept quickly  through all of us as he broke a loud cry.  Two streams of tears ran down his bony face.  He announced: " Em Thao had died!"  Oh, what pain he must have felt!  The pain of a father losing his child.  Back then, I did not understand that pain. 

Then as the years went by, father struggled in many ways to provide for the family.  Besides his conventional work in the bureaucratic post, he moonlighted any job he could find, even if it was not the most legal one, such as retailing army merchandise.  My father sacrificed so much for his children.  I remembered, for a while, he ventured with some acquaintances in running a sewer cleaning service, hoping to bring home a little extra money.  In those years, his only mode of transportation was a sky-blue moped (Vespa).  Rain or shine, day or night, he rode his moped to work.  There were many nights he did not get home until 10 pm.  Then woke up the next morning at 5 am to start his day job again.

When the Vietnam war ended, our fate intertwined with that of the country.  Our family had to migrate to Saigon according to our aunt's plea.  She was my father's next younger sister.  Love reunited our families and freedom propelled us all to leave Vietnam on April 30th, 1975.

When we arrived in the US, my father, with his patience and endurance, struggled laboriously to make a living for our family.  In those early days in a foreign country, my father sacrificed so much, so quietly, to weather so many bitter storms coming his way. But he never complained a word to his children.  (Who would ever have understood the depth of his soul!).  My father did once say:  " My nephew is a priest.  I cannot do anything controversial".

In his sixties, with old age and fragile health...unfortunately my father had to pack his suitcase and leave for Houston where he lived off his two younger sisters.  In his lonely old age, father left everything behind, living like a hunted fugitive.  The only love that sustained him at the time was that of his sisters' families, and a lady friend whom he later came to know in Houston.  She shared with father the lonely and depressed time of his life, well into his seventies, until the day he gave his last breath.  That was January 18, 2009.

                                                Into the night, thinking of you, father.

                                                                Your son, Be

Written in Vietnamese by Anh Be, translated into English by Huyen