I thought my last update on our mother’s condition was the last one, but she is still here!  Every day the family is planning and discussing preparations for the funeral, but we cannot do anything until she is dead, according to astrologers, wizards and the medium. There are so many things that need to be done for her right after her soul departs from her old body. The astrologers, wizards, monks and nuns have been telling us she was supposed to go since my last email, but she refused to listen to any of them. She asked my sister Hai to take her out, and called for me to take her back. The complexity on the social level, family and customs around death and dieing in the villages you would not believe. But I will try to explain so that you can see how much different it is here, and how much people here are still living according to Heaven and Earth, even though we are now in 21st century.

Since my last email to you our family could not do anything but sit and wait. We need to open a new “gate” for her casket to pass through, and cover it up again as soon as possible. We also need to set up 2 tents at her house, one for monks and nuns to have the funeral ceremony, and another for our family and guests to rest and eat.  But we cannot start on it until she stops breathing. The monks and nuns checked her pulse last night and let us know she will go last night or today! But now it’s 5 pm on Wednesday, May 3, and she is still telling us how much pain she goes through. She is a very strong spirit and will not give up life that easy. She still likes to hear my singing, so this morning I sung for her.  But I was so tired that I stopped.  Then she asked “Turn on the tape recorder and continue the song.”  My sister Ba sang just for fun and mother was smiling.

Since I’ve been back, I am sad, hurt, worried and very stressful sometimes, but I am OK.  That is, until after midnight last night!

If she passes after 12 am (today), because my brother Bon and I were both born in the sign of the water buffalo, we cannot be there when she passing. Therefore, brother Bon went home before midnight.  My sister Lan doesn’t believe in any of this, so she went back to her hotel. The nuns and I were chanting until after 11 pm, therefore there were no visitors.  Only the three of us: sisters Hai, Ba and myself.  We bathed and shampooed our mother in the late afternoon, talked to her and sat around her singing happy songs and telling funny stories about our father and villagers while we were growing up, and mother liked that. Sister Ba was teaching Hai and I what to do and how to watch our mother while is she passing.  We were scared and sad, but we gathered together all of our strength and made sure we all do the right things.

Because I am not supposed to be near her body or even watching her while she is passing, (when her soul “xuat hon”, departs from her body), Ba and Hai gave me something to do while they sat at mother’s bed. I was happy to do anything to keep my mind focused.

Hai gave me all mother’s personal belongings in many little plastics bags in all different colors, and she also handed me a very small aluminum box brother Bon made for her to lock everything up so she could travel to the US. But someone had opened it and the lock was broken so she couldn’t use it. Hai asked me to open it and see what is in there. This is our mother’s over 100 year’s assets!

Everything in the box new or old is her treasury. All of it has been washed and put up nicely. I went through and wrote down on the list what she has. Most of the things are gifts from me, like 4 old red ao dai, 4 sets of new cloths I made for her when she went to the US in 1994, 2 sets of nice pajamas for her to wear when she has international guests visit.

All of these clothes are still brand new in the bags, have never been worn. Some little funny gifts from international visitors were still in the boxes and have never been opened. Each new and old shirt I have to remove all the buttons so the old “ghosts” cannot take it from her and wear it! It was sad but I kept busy with mother things.
When I saw some old thing I liked, I asked Hai and Ba,  “Can I have it just for fun?” Their answer was “No! Because we don’t want our mother to be looking for it.”

Even though I was sad,  I tried not to cry so hard until I came across 2 old white shirts! I remember one long sleeve shirt was made from an “old American pillow case”. Right after my son Jimmy was born in December 1966, the weather was very cold and she had no warm clothes to wear. It was in 1967 when Mother came and stayed with my sister Lan while Lan gave birth to her first son Eddie, who got married last Sunday. Mother was so worried that she will get cold again. So she stole an old white American pillowcase from Lan so she could make a nice long sleeve shirt to wear to keep warm. Because the pillowcase was made from nice material, it was still in OK condition. But the other was an old white shirt all worn out and in very bad shape.  It was a gift from sister Ba, an old shirt from Ba when she gave it to Mom around the same time.  Both of these shirts haven been worn over and over again as “VIP” when it was needed. For 40 years it was worn and folded nicely in this little aluminum box as her treasure.  That was what hit me so hard! All of these years, mother told me how much gold and money she had, but people stole it from her over and over many times. I stopped giving her any money, but only food.

After I folded it nicely and put it all back in the little aluminum box, I asked sisters Hai and Ba “Could we bury this box under mother’s feet, but outside of her casket?” “Oh no, we don’t want people to dig up the grave and get the box.”  Therefore, we must burn everything next to her grave when we bury her. I was shocked to learn that people here are so poor that they dig up graves to look for old clothes or whatever else that they think the family has maybe buried with the dead.

Now it is 6:30 pm and my son Alan has come to take me back to Ky La village.  Alan has been here since one day before I got here, and has just hung around to see what will happen to his grandmom. But now May 1 is over and he has to go back to work.

Like me, since we got here,  each and every day we just sit around going from the hospital to the village, waiting for something to happen. But still nothing yet! Now my sister wants to go back to the US and asked mother if it is OK, and she said ”No!” when I asked if it’s OK for Alan to go back to Saigon to work, she said yes.

In the village we can never rest, because Mom has been there all her life. She has 2 daughters living in the US and I helped out the villagers around here. Everybody knows us for a lifetime and loves her.

Everyday, villagers come to pay respect to our mother and we are grateful, but some of them come at 2 am and stayed to 6am! Some are very dunk and looking for more wine, food, or cigarettes, and talk and talk for a long time.  Some tell us what to do as if our mother is already dead.  Some are disabled and old villagers who come for food. Our sisters and brother Bon asked me not to give anything but water, because if we give them food, they will keep on coming back and turn our home into another homeless center like in the hospital. That is not what we want right now. Not only are we worrying about the living, but we also are scared of “ghosts at night”.  We cannot go outside at night because it is so spooky! Here while our mother waiting to pass over, we know all of the family spirits get together to welcome her. But other spirits are fighting over her soul as well.

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