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Grandmother's Last Lesson: Seeing
Time as a Trick of the Mind
©2002 Andrew Lam
Nearing the end of her life and plagued with senility, my
grandmother fell into a strange state of grace. At 95, she believed
herself a young woman again living in her hometown in the Mekong
Delta. One day when I visited her in her convalescent home in
San Jose, California, where she had lived for the last decade
or so, I asked grandma to name the names of her four children
and she looked a bit astonished: "Children?" She said
in her frail, hoarse voice, "Mister, but I am only 17."
Receding from her memories are the years in America, years
full of longing and grief for her lost homeland. Lost, too, mercifully,
are her memories of the war and the incredible suffering it had
caused her. The garden outside her window teamed with life, butterflies
and bees hovering over gardenias and roses, but her vision had
begun to travel far beyond its walls. In her mind, Grandmother
had already gone back to a happier time, rowing her boat down
the river in the old country, singing some folksongs, watching
white cranes fly above the green rich rice fields, celebrating
Tet with relatives and neighbors -- to an unhurried world of
long ago.
My parents and aunts sighed and shook their heads whenever
they visited, feeling guilty for not being able to care for her
at home, sad that their mother no longer knew them. I, on the
other hand, took a different attitude altogether. I saw that
there was a mixed blessing in her senility and forgetfulness.
After all, grandmother had, in her own way, managed to conquer
time.
Years ago, when she was still lucid, Grandma bought a wooden
clock carved in the S shape of the map of Vietnam from a Vietnamese
store in Little Saigon in Anaheim. Above her bed, the clock ticked
mournfully, a constant reminder of how long she'd spent away
from her home and hearth. Sometimes she would watch that clock
tick as she counted her rosary and then cried silent, bitter
tears.
Indeed, America's concepts of time only helped to confuse
her. She did not know why, for instance, a grandson had to leave
home at 18. When I left home for college, she wept. I overheard
her protesting to my mother in an incredulous voice: "How
can you let him go? He 's immature at 17 and now he's 18, somehow
he's mature? Not everyone is a real adult at 18 or 21 either.
It's not so simple."
Once, I remember, she asked me how far Vietnam was from California.
I shrugged, "Well, I guess it's about 18 hours." Hearing
this, grandma, made a scowling face and snapped: "If our
country is only less than a day away by your measurement, then
tell me how come I've been waiting for 15 years, seven months
and eight days now and I am still here in America?"
If since her exile to America at the end of the Vietnam war
time had been her enemy, telling her how long she'd been away
from the country of her birth, it finally lost its grip on her
that last year. That year before she died, she was no longer
ruled by the clock. She traveled freely most of the time to the
distant past and she seemed, if not happy, then at peace.
The last time I saw her alive, we held hands. Perhaps grandma
thought I was a beau from the next village come courting or a
distant relative, but she blushed when I told her that she was
beautiful.
"Let's hurry," she said, her eyes staring at an
impossibly far away place, "we're going to be late for the
celebration at the temple."
Perhaps she is there now. As for me, since she passed away
I am, I must say, not as fearful of old age as I once was. When
I grow old and senile, I, too, should like to forget all the
sorrow and sadness in my own life. Memories of heartbreaks and
great losses will be dissolved like smoke in the morning wind.
Like grandma, I'll relive instead all the moments of intense
happiness: walking with my first love down Bankroft Street in
Berkeley at dusk; singing silly songs with my siblings on Christmas
eve when we were kids; luxuriating in my mother's arms as a child
after a warm bath; watching the moonrise with my cousin over
the ocean on a tiny island in Thailand.
And above all, I should like to return to that windblown pine
hill of Dalat, Vietnam, a plateau of forests high above the sea
where I grew up. I will sit again with my best friend in fourth
grade, the two of us leaning against a pine tree and looking
up at the clouds drifting by, our sweaters and hair stuck with
pine needles after a game of hide and seek.
It was on that same hill that I later lost my first watch,
a Mickey Mouse watch which I got for my seventh birthday, Mickey's
arms pointing at the hours and minutes that slowly led me away
from my childhood wonders and eventually my homeland. I had cried
for days afterwards, but I now think that it's apt that the watch
should lie decaying somewhere on that lovely hill.
For perhaps there is something that the adult forgets and
only the very young and very old could know: That time and space
are an illusion, a trick of the mind...
See me then as a starry-eyed child among pine trees, staring
at the shifting sky, enraptured by an impossible sense of beauty,
delighting simply to be in the world.
Can Ghosts cross the Ocean?
©2002 Andrew Lam
When we first came to America from Vietnam 22 years ago, my
grandmother suffered a sort crisis of faith. She prayed and lit
incense sticks and tapped the copper gong to call our ancestor's
spirits, but she was no longer convinced that her prayers were
heard.
What caused Grandma's consternation was the fact that Grandpa,
who had died during the war, had never once visited her in her
dreams in America.
"Son," Grandma would sometimes ask me, "do
you think ghosts can cross the ocean?"
"I think so Grandma." I would answer quickly, if
only to make her feel better -- but how would I know? All I knew
was that back home grandma often had dreams in which grandpa
would come and talk with her.
Indeed, at times it seemed as if they were still a couple
living together. When Grandma lost her jade bracelet, for instance,
she prayed to Grandpa and he came in her dream and told her where
to look. She found it the next day.
Another time Grandma, who had given up writing poetry when
she was young, surprised every one at breakfast by reciting a
mellifluous ode to Spring and Autumn. When we applauded she pointed
to the dark rose wood altar and said, "I had help. You should
compliment Grandpa as well."
The last time Grandma saw Grandpa in her dream was near the
end of the Vietnam war. "You will go on a very long trip
and we won't meet for a long time," he predicted. Grandma
was perplexed. She couldn't imagine going anywhere but to join
him and our ancestors in the spirit world. Grandpa's prediction
made sense after communist tanks rolled into Saigon and my family
and I had to flee our beloved homeland.
When I was young, grandma's question struck me as a bit eerie.
Now I find it tragic. After all, exile is a kind of spiritual
amputation. Once we were bound to the land in which our ancestors
were buried and we lived comfortably with ghosts and the idea
of death and dying. In America our old way of life was quickly
thrown out the window.
America looks to the future, and not the past, it is moved
by the ideas of progress and opportunity. And American people
move about, from job to job, from city to city, restlessly. Indeed,
where can one's ancestral ghosts dwell in a world of humming
computers and concrete freeways and shiny high-rises?
As time passed, Grandma's question came to seem irrelevant
for most of her grandchildren -- we have gone on to become Americans.
Some of us still light incense sticks and pray on certain Vietnamese
holidays, but the ritual acts seem more like tribute, gestures
to a distant memory rather than participation in a living tradition.
I can't remember the last time I lit incense sticks and talked
to my dead ancestors. Having fled so far from Vietnam, I can
no longer imagine what to say, or to whom I should address my
prayers, or for that matter what promises I could possibly make
to my dead ancestors since the most sacred one of all-- that
I should live and die in my own homeland-- has already been broken.
Can ghosts cross the ocean? Perhaps I'll never know, but the
other day, when I visited Grandma in her convalescent home, the
question for her, at least, was resolved.
"I was sitting in the garden yesterday," Grandma
told me in a happy and excited voice that I hadn't heard for
a long time, "and there was this butterfly that kept flying
about me. Suddenly, I just blurted out and asked: 'husband, if
it is you then come land on my shoulder.' And it did, on both
sides, and it stayed for a long, long time."
A few days after my visit, Grandma collapsed and fell into
a coma. The doctors said there was little chance of recovery.
"She could go anytime now," they warned.
Yet when I think of my grandmother it's not a decrepit old
body sustained by a respirator and IV units that I see. The image
that I keep safe is the one I did not see: A gentle old lady
sits serenely in the rose garden at dusk, smiling happily. A
flock of butterflies alights upon her bony frame, their wings
forming a golden blanket for her in the last light.
The Old Man and the Cup
©2002 John Trigonis
Why are you so fucking cold!? The old man on the corner of
6th & Washingtons asks
his cup of coffee. The wind blows past him, mingling with his
beard. Why are you cold?
Answer me, damnit! He takes a sip and curses. Damn you , tell
me why?
Silent in his hands for a moment, the flowery cup replies:
How am I supposed to keep
myself warm if I give you all my hot liquid? I'm no martyr
for your cause!
The old man, defiant, spits into it. How dare you talk
to me that way?! It's cold out here
on the street, he pleads; don't make me buy another cup.
Go right ahead, the cup responds, see if some other cup will
sacrifice itself for you. It's a
"Me World" out here; we cups are not excluded!
Neither am I, says the old man drinking the last of his cold
fluid, neither am I.
Essay - August, 2002
Joy Lucadello Luster
It seems that here in the United States in the year 2002 we
are plagued with fears. We fear the loss of traditional civil
rights and freedoms. We fear for the safety of the young men
and women in our armed forces that are facing danger all over
the world. Many persons are now afraid of flying. Some are afraid
of dark skinned men. Some are becoming afraid to speak out, with
chilling recollections of the McCarthy era. We fear for the future
of our economy. Yet, billions of dollars are spent on weapons
and on security measures of one kind and another.
We are in a war declared by the president against terrorists.
Unlike other wars where there was a known enemy, we are in battle
against unknown persons. Oh, we've had these types of wars before,
you could say. There has been the slogan driven 'War on Drugs',
the ongoing 'War on Crime', and some even remember Lyndon Johnson's
'War on Poverty'. Real crimes were committed, and real people
were killed and maimed by the national tragedy of 2001. We each
want justice for these crimes. What are we really doing to prevent
these from happening again?
We seek Osama bin Laden and his followers much as we have
sought the drug lords, the slumlords, and the crime lords. If
we can just find and punish those in charge, if we can deter
young misled youth from following, if we can force evil persons
to change, then will we have won?
As individuals many of us have long sought peace from the
turmoil and passions that are a part of the human condition.
To seek peace within the human mind and body requires tranquility
and serenity. We meditate, we think, we search within ourselves
for answers. Searching for personal peace implies a tacit knowledge
of inner turmoil. One reviews whatever brought her or him to
the here and now of seeking internal peace. Out of this process
we may find the questions, and perhaps some of the answers.
What if this nation took a look at itself? Will we look at
our national inner turmoil? It's a great nation, no doubt about
it. Physically, many of us live well. We are not dying of starvation
nor threatened by the freezing temperatures of the winter months.
We have land and resources, beauty and power. We are generous.
Many physicians and other medical personnel donate time and expertise
to African countries, India, Sri Lanka, Mexico and other place
where their skills save eyesight, heal broken bodies, and purify
water systems. When an earthquake devastates Japan, Pakistan,
or Iran we are quick to send supplies and equipment to the area.
We are willing to share and we care.
Then there is the other United States. This is the country
that is imperialistic, arrogant and racist. We tell the Palestinians
that they must have a free election, but not to elect President
Arafat again. We dictate to Afghanistan people what we will and
will not accept. We ignore our shortcomings and mistakes. We
are vaguely sorry if someone gets bombed by mistake. "That's
the way it is during a war," we say. War is exciting, powerful,
and profitable for many. Domestic issues pale in significance
and may be ignored. The ordinary person feels increasingly forgotten.
Imagine if you will that we take a good look at ourselves with
the goal of peace in mind. What questions will we ask ourselves?
Why do so many people in other countries hate this country? What,
if anything, have we done to encourage dislike? If peace is our
real goal, are we willing to change some of our behaviors so
that all of the countries feel better about each other and us?
Is peace our real goal? Imagine a country where trains ran on
time, homelessness was nonexistent, and racism was learned only
from old history books. Imagine if poverty was almost abolished,
and inventions and medical achievements were shared with the
world communities. In this future United States others will not
fear us. And as important, we will not be plagued with fears.
We will practice what we have been preaching some democracy.
Utopia? No, only a brief glimpse of the results that peace within
the country might bring.
Can we learn to share without patronizing? Can we become one
among many in the world seeking the abolishment of illiteracy,
famine, and disease? Can we work with others to defuse and minimize
longstanding conflicts and ethnic hatreds? Can we elect leaders
who, like our doctors, our builders, our humanists, will participate
and share? Can this country find excitement and power with peace?
And are we brave enough to try?
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Fall
2002