Victor over the Past - Chapter 8

From: … Nguyen @yahoo.com>
Subject: Nguyen 's Biography
To: thuyhang606@yahoo.com
Date: Wednesday, February 24, 2010, 9:42 AM

Thân tặng TH quyển hồi ký …

Thân tặng TH quyển hồi ký …

" Về chia sẻ kinh nghiệm với bạn bè. TH cứ tự nhiên. Nếu bài học cuả mình có hữu ích được cho đời thì mình nên chia sẻ. Có vậy thì xã hội mới tiến bộ và phát triển được. Những gì mình có thể để lại trên đời này thì mình nên để lại."

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CHAPTER 8

 When summer break came, my mother brought my two other sisters from Can Tho to

visit us. That was nice because it was the first time that our family had gathered together

in many months. The whole place was filled with laughing and talking. We teased Thanh

Van our oldest sister about one lieutenant captain who asked my father for his approval

to become engaged to her. My parents arranged for the engagement. It went well. A few

weeks passed, my mother announced that she would stay home with us for a while

because she was pregnant. My two older sisters would have to stay with us for a while

too. My family stayed together until my mother gave birth to Thanh Tuyen, my youngest

sister. I remember my father told me that my mother had a very difficult time when she

had Thanh Tuyen. He thought he would lose my mother. Fortunately, things went well

for her that time. My mother had a nanny to help take care of Thanh Tuyen. After a

month, Thanh Tuyen had her christening ceremony. These happy times made us think

that it could last forever.

Then came the day that I cannot forget. That morning my mother decided to take a

trip to a distant village to do charity work. She wanted to take the whole family with her,

but my second sister and I did not want to go with her, and Thanh Tuyen was too small

to go anywhere. So my mother left with my first and third sister and another group of

people. As soon as she left the mansion, I sneaked out of the building without permission

from my father or my mother. I went to visit my friend. I spent the entire time at my

friend's place. I stayed there until two o'clock in the afternoon; then I sneaked back into

the mansion. As I came into the building, I saw many people inside, and all of them

looked very sad and serious. At that point, my heart beat fast because I was afraid that

my father and my mother had found out about my sneaking out of the mansion without

their knowledge. When I walked inside, my second sister, Thanh Tung, was in tears. She

told me that my mother and my sisters were killed. The Viet Cong knew that trip was

organized that day, so they placed bombs on the road that my mother and my two

sisters took and killed them. I stood in shock. I could not believe what I had learned.

Again, I lost my loved ones without having a chance to say goodbye.

 Tragedy seemed to hit my family when we had just started to enjoy our lives together.

My family had worked very hard for a dream that one day we all could live together in

one place. Just as we were about to reach our dream, these men from no where took

away my family's dream and destroyed our family, and they did it in such a cowardly

manner. I wanted to find these people who destroyed my family and make them pay for

what they did. I wanted them to pay an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Then I

wished things could happen differently for my family. I wished that these men had not

committed this murder. I wished that these men had aborted their mission. Then I would

still have my mother and my sisters. However, one sad thing in the war was that people

would do anything to win. I was not quite sure that these men had any choice at all. All

they knew was to carry out orders, and what ever happened was just another

consequence of the war.

 I was torn between the urge for revenge and the acceptance of the way of life in

Vietnam at that time. In just one day, I lost a big part of my life. I would never have a

chance to tell my mother and my sisters how much I loved them. I would no longer be

able to see their smiles. I wondered who would take care of Thanh-Tung, Thanh-Tuyen,

and me. I wished there were peace in Vietnam, so people no longer had to suffer the loss

of their families. I thought it was foolish for people to kill each other just because some

small groups differed from themselves in their beliefs or conduct.

 I could not understand why God allowed such terrible things to happen to me and my

family. My father and mother tried to make their lives, their family life, and the lives of

the families in the town better. Yet my mother and sisters had to pay a terrible price. So

far, we tried very hard to conduct our lives according to our beliefs and our religion. We

thought that we were at least rewarded for that, but we were not. The more I thought

about it, the weaker my faith became. Everything seemed wasteful and meaningless. It

seems ironic that we all made every effort to stay alive eventhough we certainly faced

death at the end. What made us continue to hold on to life as long as we could? How

would my father, my sisters, and I continue our lives without my mother? All of those

thoughts bombarding my head made me feel weary. I wanted to go to sleep to forget

everything I had just learned. I was hoping that what I was experiencing that moment

was just a bad dream, and when I woke up later, it would be gone, and I would see my

mother and my sisters again. So I went to take a nap. When I woke up that evening, the

noises were still there, the crying was also still there, and the sky was dark outside. I

closed my eyes again hoping that I was still in a bad dream. But a few minutes later, I

opened my eyes one more time. Things were still the same. This time I knew I could not

sleep away the reality. I got up and went downstairs to join my father and my sister

beside the coffins.

 Everytime somebody stood in front of the coffins and bowed to display respect, my

sister and I in turn did the same thing to return their respect and to show appreciation

for their presence. The ceremony lasted for two days. Then it came to time to bury my

mother and my sisters. My father and my grandparents decided to take my mother's and

my sisters's bodies to my grandparents's plantation and bury them there. After the

decision was made, my father contacted the different local authorities along the route to

Bien Hoa where my grandparents lived to arrange for local police to direct local traffic

along the route. Once the arrangements were made, we started to inform people of the

time to leave.

 When the time came, people gathered and lined up to travel for four hours to my

grandparents's place. After the cortege was completely formed, there were about eighty

cars and trucks in the line. Once the procession completely formed, we began our

journey. Every town we passed by provided a group of at least ten to twelve policemen.

Each rode his own motorcycle escorting the cortege and stopping the traffic. I did not

realize the power that my father had until I saw the number of people involved and the

amount of effort put into the funeral. After a few hours of inconvenience and discomfort,

we reached our destination. There we began the burial ceremony. Some Buddhist monks

initiated the ceremony. As soon as the ceremony began, rain started pouring down on

every one of us. That somehow gave me the thought that even God was touched by my

mother's and my sisters's deaths. After we finished the burial, we spent a night at my

grandparent's home while other guests went back to their towns and relatives. The next

morning, we went back to Tra Vinh.

To be coninued...