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Hello Friends,
It has been some
time since I have contributed anything to Dong Hanh. I guess it's
part of my coming home to Phong Trao again after an absence of several
years. But that is another story for another time. I’d like to share
with you something that I had written last year. I had originally
intended to send it to Dong Hanh last year, but as it seems with many
of my ideas, it got lost in the mess that is every day living. I
share it with you now, slightly edited but with the same heart as I
had back then.
Tuesday,
September 30, 2003.
I’m a very
private person by nature, but I need to get my thoughts in order and
writing has always helped. Why then, write this letter for hundreds
of people to read; to tell you the truth, I’m not really sure.
Perhaps it’s to be better understood. I don’t think I am very well
understood. But then again, I also think people assume this too
often. Everyone thinks they are misunderstood. I often tell people,
you know what, your problem is not so unusual. I once even did a
calculation, if a person went through the same experience that I am
going through at this moment, once in their life, calculating for
population, life span, etc, there are about 125,000 people
experiencing the same thing I am. Yeah, I am strange.
I surprise people
a lot. That’s what makes me think I am hard to understand, that and
the fact that ... well, I’ll not going to go there. Perhaps it’s
about sympathy, or maybe it’s what the Pope calls solidarity, knowing
that all humans are united; it’s probably all of them.
But anyway,
clearing my head. I found out on Friday that my dad has a brain
tumor. Yeah. Brain tumor. We didn’t tell him on Friday. We wanted
him to have a regular weekend, to relax before all of this started.
So today I found out that his tumor is an inch and a half in the
center of his brain. We’ll find out tomorrow if it’s cancerous or
not.
Now, I have to be
honest, there’s no point in doing this if you lie. I’ve never gotten
along with my dad very well. He’s not my biological father. He
married my mom when I was 3 or 4. I don’t quite remember how old I
was, but I do remember my mom actually asking me if it was ok for her
to marry him. I said if you want to it’s ok with me. I actually
remember saying that. We were standing outside his apartment, it was
on the 2nd floor of the complex, there was a metal rail and my mom was
wearing this long striped skirt.
I remember
entering his apartment and there were some toys that he had put on
this small round table for me. The only one that I remember was a toy
giraffe. I had that giraffe for years, until it was falling apart and
we had to throw it away. I never really played with it much, it was
one of those plastic ones with movable joints, I never really played
with animal stuff very much, I was more into military stuff like tanks
and soldiers, or cars, but I kept it. I don’t think he ever got me a
toy afterwards. But I remember it.
Yeah, so he’s my
step dad. Like I said, we never really got along much. But I
expected that. He loves my brother and sister a great deal though,
and that I expect, after all they are his flesh and blood. And I am
glad for that. They are technically my half brother and sister, but
I’ve never made that distinction, I love them with all of my heart. I
didn’t have the greatest childhood, and I am so happy my brother and
sister never had to experience what I went through.
So on Friday I
learned how much I really do love my dad. Oh, I knew it in my head,
but in my heart, I think my love for him was buried deep down
somewhere in the corner of some tiny room of my heart that I had
closed the door to and forgotten was there at all, until Friday. On
Friday, I found it again. And there it was, my love for him, and it
was bigger than I ever remembered it or could have imagined. Perhaps
it grew over the years, how I have no idea because I never fed it, or
talked to it, or even looked at it. I think God was slipping it some
food under the crack in the door.
Seeing it made me
so sad, so much wasted time. I’m 30 now, it’s been 26, 27 years. I
never said I love you dad. It’s a clich, I know, but it’s true. In
the past several years I have been trying to be a better son. It’s
been really hard too. But, love isn’t suppose to be easy, is it? I
don’t know. Loving people has always been hard for me and on me.
My mom says I
have bad luck. My mom and dad and I were talking over dinner on
Sunday. She said that my sister has a lot of good luck, and that
sometimes she wishes that my sister would experience a little bad
luck, so that I could have some good luck. I told her that it was ok,
that if I could take all of my sister’s and brother’s bad luck I’d be
happy to do that. She gave me a funny look. But I’ve already made a
deal with God about that, so there’s not much she can do about that
anyway.
That Sunday
night, at dinner my dad told me he wanted to get baptized as a
Catholic. Though he was brought up a Buddhist, he’s not much of
anything really. That was such a joy for me to hear, and knowing that
this was an honest wish of his. Not because of the brain tumor,
because we hadn’t told him yet (we told him this morning). He wants
to become Catholic. Oh this makes me cry when I think about it. I
guess I will never understand how God works, 53 years old and my dad
wants to become Catholic, blessed is the Lord.
Even though I am
devoutly Catholic, and my brother is a member of the parish council,
and my sister and mother are Catholic too, we’ve never forced him to
go to Mass with us, or forced any part of our Faith upon him. It is
an indescribable feeling in me when I think about it. Hope, Love,
Faith, I feel them all at the same time. I don’t think I’ve ever felt
this way before. It’s such a strange mix with the brain tumor.
A friend asked me
how I was, I kept telling her I don’t know ... because, well I don’t
know how I feel. I think this is going to be the most difficult on my
mother. I don’t think she expected to outlive my dad. She’s always
been the sick one. When they were in the emergency room this morning,
the nurses thought she was the one who needed to be admitted. They
even offered her a wheelchair. She’s the person in our family who
needs to be in control the most, so I think this is going be hardest
for her. So now I need to find a Vietnamese priest who will baptize
my dad with the least hassle. He’s not very good at learning new
things anymore. He has a hard enough time remembering the things he’s
already learned. So I’m going to take the next few days off from
work. My boss is pretty good about those things. I’m really good at
what I do, so I know they don’t want to lose me, but regardless. I
would quit in a heartbeat to be with my dad. So tomorrow, it’s back
to the hospital. If you read this, say a prayer for my mom, that she
would have the strength to get through this ok. Her sister-in-law
keeps telling her that all of her sicknesses are due to her sins.
That gets me so mad, I’ve been telling my mom how untrue that is,
using examples from the Bible, stories of the saints, even Mother Mary
and Jesus. I think she understands it better now, but there is the
part of her that thinks, perhaps this is punishment for what happened
in her past. I know it’s not true; I just have to convince her. So
please pray for her. Thank you,
So that is what I
wrote a year ago. I’m sure you are wondering how things have turned
out in the last year. My faith for the last 15 years has been a big
part of my life. I am a drastically different person than I would be
if it were not for the Love of God and His grace and gift of faith.
I have spent the
last several years of my life trying to spread that faith to those
around me, from teaching Catechism classes, leading retreats, being
heavily involved in youth groups and young adult ministries; but I
have always wondered how to share that beautiful gift with my father,
and have through the years not found an answer, at least not until
last year.
I guess simply
living a good Christian life was the best way. I guess seeing his
children become good upright people in faith said something to him,
moved him in ways that words could not. So on October 25th, 2003 my
father was Baptized and Confirmed; received his first Holy Eucharist
and Anointing of the Sick. Four sacraments in one day. His marriage
with my mother was later blessed.
I cried that
day. I don’t cry often, even less from being happy, but I cried that
day for my mother and father. I could see the joy in their faces. I
could see a large shadow removed from their lives. Their shoulders
seemed to be a little less bent that day. For one day, it didn’t
matter that my father had a brain tumor, for one day the brain tumor
was not the biggest issue in our lives.
My father’s tumor
was a very rare tumor and he had to have surgery to have any hope of
survival let alone recovery. So he had surgery for his brain tumor on
the following Friday, October 31st, Halloween. I held my father’s
hand while he laid in bed until they pushed him through the double
doors that would take him to the surgery room. I don’t think I’d ever
held his hand. My father is very much a typical Vietnamese man,
quiet, strong. But for the first time in my life, I looked in his
eyes and saw that he was truly afraid. My mother kept saying that
we’d be waiting for him and that we would see him after the surgery,
trying to be optimistic. But I could see the look in his eyes that
said, this might be the last time I see my family.
Though I knew
that it would hurt greatly if things did not go well, I was at peace.
It was a peace that was not of this world. The world around me was
spinning in a million different directions but God granted me His
peace through that tough time. As I watched the double doors to the
surgery room close I knew that things would be OK whatever happened.
My father would either be able to spend more time with his family
after the surgery or he would be home with our Father in heaven. Yes,
things would be OK.
My father’s
surgery went well, and today he lives a good life. While he cannot do
everything he was used to doing, he is enjoying his early retirement.
He spends much of his time working on the house or in the garden. He
made a bench in our back yard and I see him sitting on his new bench
often. Our lawn has never looked nicer. But the best thing, he
smiles a lot more.
Hope. It is one
of the 3 eternal things, as St. Paul tells us. Hope somehow kept my
love for my father alive, despite all of the things that I did and all
the things that I didn’t do. Hope fed my love for him when I had
forgotten how to love him or that I even should love him. Hope
transformed, evangelized my father after 53 years of life. It caused
a change and growth in him that I had prayed for every day and yet
never thought would see. Hope gave me the strength to sleep in
hospital chairs and hold my mother while she cried. Hope has given me
peace and made me smile this past year. I’ve learned how to trust in
hope, because God is faithful, always.
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