Dear Friends,

I will return to Vietnam for my mother’s “49 days ceremony” on the 20th of June. If some of you reading this can come, it would be great! I will have a much more detailed report on the “49 days ceremony” when it’s over at the end of June. If you have any questions on this living and death subject, I am more than happy to get it out of my chest.  So let’s have an open discussion on this matter, because we all will go through this gate, and perhaps we want to know if there is a place in between Heaven, Earth and Hell.

Many thanks to you all.

How is my mother?

I am sure many of you would like to know. So here is a short update about her for you.

Yesterday, Wednesday, May 25, 2006, was the “14 days ceremony” for our mother.  This is the second ceremony after her passing.

Almost every one of us forgot about it!  At five a.m. my sister Hai remembered it so she woke me up and asked, “What are we going to do?”  “I’ll take care of it,” I told her, but I fell back to sleep again. Hai hit me again and got me up.

I went to the market, did some shopping, and cooked some good vegetation dishes for the offering for Mom’s “14 days ceremony”. Family members helped me cook and serve.

After all food was cooked, fresh flowers and fruits were presented in many places, and I chanted for our mother at her altar while sister Ba, Tinh and sister Lan’s new daughter-in-law went to visit our mother’s grave.

When they returned, sister Ba was very upset.  She went to our mother’s altar and asked our mother “Why? Why you upset with me?”

While Ba visited at mother's grave she asked our mother for her approval of the job Ba and her family did with the funeral, or whatever Ba wanted to know from Mom. But our mother kept on answering "No!” to Ba four times!  When Ba got back to the house, she went directly to Mom's altar and asked it again. Still three more times "No" from Mom. Not only “No”, but Mom was upset!

On the other hand, everything sister Hai and her daughter Tinh asked from Mom, they got. I didn’t ask for anything, but will wait until I am ready to leave for the US next week and ask mother’s permission so I can go. Even though our mother is no longer here, we still have to ask her things to see if she gives permission for us to do them or not. In my case, I am not asking permission, but rather to let her and my father know that I have to go home to the US.  I don’t want to put our mother in a situation like sisters Ba and Lan just did, where Mom cannot say yes or no to them. The difference is when you tell Mom that you are going home and she is OK with it, but when you ask her to approve something or not, it’s another matter all together.  I know in my heart that Mom loves me no matter what. And if I did a bad job with the funeral, I didn’t mean to, and I would hope she would forgive me.  And if I did a good job, she would know and be happy.

When we had an “Open Grave? ceremony” last week at the graveside, my brother Bon asked her first and I asked her second who if she was happy with everything. All of her answers were “Yes”, she blesses both Bon and I. But she isn’t happy with Ba and others.

The only way for the living to continue to communicate with the dead is to take 2 old Chinese coins, called "tien am duong"  - “Yin and Yen” or “positive and negative” coins - and paint one side with white color and put it in a small place. When we ask the questions to the dead, we throw 2 coins up in the air and if it lands with one white side up and the other down, it means yes.  If both sides are the same color, it means no.

 We have to trust this message; otherwise we cannot communicate with our loved ones from other side. The Asian culture has been doing this for over 4,000 years, so it must be working well for them.  You only can ask three times, and if all three times are for one person and if all three times the answer is no, that means the spirits are very unhappy with something that that person did or didn’t do.

We can still try to find out what’s wrong and work through it, or just stop asking. Sometimes we have someone else pray for us with the question, like with me, sister Hai would be my helper with all my questions, because I don’t know how to ask.

After Mom said “no” to Ba so many times, Ba was unhappy and upset, she was angry with our mother and promised she won’t be back to Ky La ever again! I felt sorry for Ba, but also hurt for our mother who now cannot defend herself.  What if the coins were wrong? But if it’s true that our mother was unhappy with Ba, I totally understand why.

Ba is a good and beautiful daughter in our family.  However, she married Chin back in 1950 when he forced her to do so. Chin turned Ba to the Catholic religion. In those days it was the war against the French and later against the U.S., and that alone was a great hardship for our parents to bear. But because we are Buddhist, that put our family in even more danger and it was shameful for Ba and Chin.

Today Ba’s children and their families are all Catholic.  That means that the ceremonies done by the monks, or any kind of spiritual ritual by the Buddhist monks is very different and hard for Ba and Chin to accept. Also, Ba now is a very wealthy widow and she has many successful and powerful children. One of Ba’s sons, Minh, is now a high Catholic priest in a big Catholic church with thousands of followers in Danang. So Ba is much different than Hai in all the ways.

On the other hand, our poor sister Hai, who is very poor, she has stayed faithful to her dishonest and unfaithful husband ever since 1953. Hai looked after our parents in the village throughout the war and all of her life, and she never had a chance to learn much of anything. Because she is poor and without any power, it’s very hard for her to get along with others and people always look down at her. People in the village think that because Hai lives without a husband or a male friend since 1953, she did not know how to be friendly and warm to people like Ba or others in the village. Hai got along with our parents with “Love and Hate” relationship. But from the bottom of our hearts we love Hai, because she is the only one who was there with our beloved parents while the rest of us all run away.

Sister Lan it another totally different matter. I brought her and her two mixed race children out of Vietnam to the US in 1975.  She is now doing very, very well in San Diego.  Lan worked very hard and became very successful as a businesswoman.  Even though she couldn’t read or write in Vietnamese or English she is very smart in her own way.  Lan is a landlady for many apartment buildings, and she own a very big second hand store and a whole block of housing and a store on El Cajon Boulevard in San Diego.  She has a lot of cash and still buries it in the ground and doesn’t know what to do with it. But Lan is Lan.

Since I returned here to Vietnam in 1986, our mother always told me that her gold was lost. The gold she had was from me, and some was from Lan.  But in 1992 Lan came back and asked for it and our mother gave all of Lan’s gold back to her. Not only Lan’s gold, but she also took back mine as well! Since then our mother forgot about it and thought she lost it somewhere.

After the expensive funeral expensive we were short about $650. Our Brother Bon asked sisters Hai, Ba and Lan to help him out. Bon went around and asked each person how much could they help. Sister Ba volunteered to give $130 as first. Sister Hai said she only could help with 1 million dong (about $65) and the rest would be up to Lan and brother Bon. Because sister Lan came from the US and she is a very rich woman, we all hoped that she would give more. Sister Ba shared with her on all funeral matters, but after three meetings, Lan only can offer 2 million dong or about $130, like everyone else.

I was upset with Lan and offered to pay for her share, too.  “We don't need her help!” I told my family. But sisters Hai, Ba and brother Bon said that I did a lot already, and that my part was so far over $700 + and I am just the baby girl. I should not have paid for anything! In Vietnamese culture, the whole of our parents’ assets will go directly to the youngest child no matter what. So Hai, Ba and Bon tried to ask Lan one more time, explaining to her the situation. After Lan thought it over and said she was willing to give one million more dong, but only as an IOU note.

So last Sunday, the day before Lan returned to the US, our family had a third meeting and asked Lan again, because we know she still has so much money and gold with her, and in the bank here in Vietnam.

Lan was upset and she asked what happened to all her gold that she gave to our mother to hold for her before she left Vietnam in 1975?  Lan thinks either Hai or Bon still has it, and that’s why Lan was not willing to give anything to the funeral but $130. Not only she didn’t give much, but she also asked sister Ba not to give! So, Ba didn’t give her part either, but told Bon to sell the gold.

Now sister Ba and Lan tried to get to the bottom of our mother’s gold?! Bon was upset and he showed us photos showing that Lan took all the gold with her when she came for the first time in 1992. There were two people who were witnesses in the photos, and said that Lan had all the gold that I gave to our mother in 1970 when I left Vietnam as well. Now Lan lies and says she doesn’t have it.

That was it!  When I saw the photos I was outraged and I picked a fight with Lan.  She could not lie anymore, so she showed us all the gold she now carries out with her. This gold our mother gave to her that she planned to take out of the country in 1992.  But because it was so much she cannot take it all out of Vietnam, so she buried it in the yard. Now she came back and dug it up, and used some of the gold for her son Eddie’s wedding.  She also gave some to her son to wear, and she carried the rest back with her to the US, but not to help with our mother’s funeral.

I was mad when I saw the gold.  It was late in the night, so my sister Ba and Hai begged my brother Bon to take me back to Danang, because they don’t want anybody to know about the gold or all of us fighting over the wealth right after our mother’s funeral.

Monday morning, May 22, Lan and her son Eddie left Vietnam for good. I returned to the village on Tuesday to hear all the stories from sister Hai about how Ba and Lan promised to each other that neither of them will come back to Ky La anymore, and won’t help out with anything else with the funeral finances.  But Lan is planning to have Ba travel to the US with her new daughter-in-law sometime within the next 2 years.

I think all these things made our mother very upset with Ba and Lan. On Wednesday, May 24, the “14 days ceremony” of our mother’s passing, Ba went to our mom’s grave. After she returned, she tried to communicate with our mother at mother’s altar, but mom kept turning Ba down with the two coins, and kept on saying “No”? to Ba’s requests. Ba used that as a way to justify staying away from Ky La forever.  Now both Lan and Ba have abandoned our mother’s home, grave, and village.

After the “14 days ceremony” lunch yesterday, everybody was taking a nap inside the house and I was the only one awake, reading a book outside.  But then I fell asleep, too. I heard my mother’s voice say "Remember 36 more days. 36 days ceremony." I knew it was my mother’s voice that came to me, but why did she say “36 days”?  For what? I got up and asked my sister Hai and Phuong, brother Bon’s wife, to think what the message was about. 

Tuesday morning, May 23, I met with the people at the Education Department in Danang city about the Mobile Libraries workshop I want to do while I am here in June for our mother’s “49 days ceremony”. But the people at the education department said that because during the summer all schools are out and all teachers off, it will be very hard to get them to come for the workshop in June. They asked if we would wait and have it in August instead. After that, I was thinking not to come back here for our mother’s “49 days ceremony” from June 25-28, but instead propose to her I come back for the “100 days ceremony”, which will be in August. And that is why she reminded me to be back for her “49 days ceremony”.

As I told you before, “49 days ceremony” is the biggest day of all because she has to be at her “trial” and she might be scared. The only way we can help her out is it to have 20 + monks and nuns help us pray for her, to ask gods and Buddha to reduce her sin. But I cannot be back and forth all the time. Without me being here, however, nothing will happen. Therefore, our mother came to me and asked for help by reminding me that there are 36 more days left to mark 49 days after her death, and that is a big day and ceremony that needs to be done for her, no matter what.

I am the only one who knows what to do, and it is very important for me to be back here with many of you for that.

What do you think? Thank you! With Love, Le Ly :: Go to Part 9

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