Exercise # 6 / Creative writing

 Writing a letter to Ba Minh

I met you for the first time when my mother took me to visit you at your house around 1976-77.

My family lived in the big building just a few blocks away and across the street from your house.

We came unannounced and uninvited on one Sunday, I guess. Sunday was the day that everyone was off from work.

I was 6 years old.

Your house was hidden in a small alley. There was a plum tree in front of the gate.

You were in your 40s. You were sitting down in front of the yard, washing a big bucket of your family clothes when we entered. I remember you sat underneath a big banyan tree. You were there without your shirt on. There was a long water hose coiling on the ground that ran water into the big bucket.

 I remember that my mother called your name, “Anh Minh.”

You looked it up. And you smiled at both of us.

Your smile was charming, bright, welcoming, and inviting. Your smile was gentle and frank. Your smile was radiant over your whole face. When you smiled, your eyes smiled along. When you smiled, everything around smiled with you.

That smile would come a long way with me for the next 40 years of my life until this day. 

I paused here for a few minutes. Absorbed what I just wrote. So.

I would remind myself that when I write about/to you, and if I am stuck with ill intention, hate, and madness, I will bring myself back to your beautiful smile so I can continue to write a letter to you with the best intention in my heart.

When you looked up and saw us, you stopped washing the clothes. You stood up and went back inside to dress more appropriately to host uninvited guests. You asked your son to get me and my mother some water as a welcome gesture of a host.

You called an oldest son out to take your place and continue with the laundry.  

Your oldest son was 15-16 years old at that time. He sat down and started to wash the clothes. He was like you. He had a charming smile. He was gentle. Washing a big bucket of clothes and at the same time, he was politely listening to your conversation with my mother.  Sometimes he would answer questions as my mother asked him.  

I do not remember that we met your wife on the same visit but both families became friends after that.

Your wife, Cô Sương, was a petite lady with a soft voice and gentle face. Sương means a drop of dew. She was exactly like her name. A pure pristine drop of dew. Her voice was extremely soft. Sometimes I could not hear the words out of her mouth. I could guess what she said by looking at her gentle gestures. I never remember she raised her voice at all. She was a skillful cook and baker. She knew how to sew and embroidery well. Deep down in my heart, I know that she was a very kind lady.

You had five kids at the time we met. Four boys and a daughter. Your daughter was the same age as mine.

Odd enough, both of us share the same middle name “Thủy” (as my mother’s name.) Her name is Lê Thủy Trúc. My name is Huỳnh Thủy Châu.

Somehow, faith could be intertwined in a goosebump like that.

My mother knew you because both of you and my mother worked at the same company.

When she came back to the South after 1975, she was sent to work at a Television station because she was an artist. You worked there as a cameraman/photographer since before 1975.

You and my mother were in the same department. You and my mother spent a lot of time working together on the same projects.

We come to your house often.  

Your house was too small for a family of eight. You and your wife, five children plus two grandparents lived in a tiny house. I remember your family raised a little piggy right inside that little house. There was a little pig that kept following one grandparent around.  There was a tiny toilet area. No wonder you had to wash the clothes outside. All the sons took a bath in the front yard. A girl who needed privacy took a bath inside that tiny toilet/bathroom area. The two grandparents had their bed outside the tiny living room. There was a big bunk bed for all the children. I remember we kids climbed up to the top of a bunk bed to jump over to the small bed where you shared with your wife. One of your older sons invented the parachute game. We were all covered in blankets and jumped down. Life was hard but we did have a good time. Until we didn’t.

Then your children came to visit my family at our apartment. We lived in a seven-floor - tall building with a rooftop. Your older sons made kites out of newspapers glued on bamboo sticks with a thick roll of fishing thread. We all came up to the rooftop to fly our kites. I remember the second son always encouraged us, younger kids, to tie a small piece of paper that we send our wishes to the sky. We did and looked at the tiny papers slowly flying up along the string reach to the kites. Sometimes the wind was so strong, the paper got torn and flew away. He said, “oh no. The universe did not receive your wish. Do it again.” We were poor but we felt that we were on top of the world. We did have a good time. Until we didn’t.

The two families became friends.  I remember you and my father used to talk and hang out. I did some math for this writing. Turns out that you and my father were the same age. Both were 9 years older than my mother.

You and my father were different. You did not smoke. It was rare back there for a Vietnamese man who did not smoke.

My father smoked until he died.

You were from Hue, the Imperial city, and then settled down in the South. My father was born in the South but came to the North, joined the North Army, and became a member of the Communist Party. My father was a handsome man with a serious look on his face. I do not remember my father’s smile or laugh. My first remembering of my father was he was grumpy a lot. When my father got grumpy, his thick bushy, and dark eye brown got stuck together right in front of my face.  I used to get scared of my father.

I remembered that I was never scared of you, Ba Minh.  Until I was later.

In 1977, my mother was pregnant with my little sister. She gave birth to my sister on May 13,1978 in Từ Dũ hospital, Sài Gòn.

During her pregnancy, Sài Gòn rained all the time. She recalled that whenever she went outside of the house, it was rainy. Sài Gòn rain was typically tropical one of a kind. It rained suddenly, heavily, and fast, dogs and cats fight for few minutes and then stopped. Kids used to come out of the house to take rain showers all the time. Then the sun would come out for a while, and it rained again unpredictably...throughout 6 months of the year.

My mother nicknamed my little sister Thủy Mưa. Again, Thủy is her name and Mưa is rain in Vietnamese. Later, she used Thủy Mưa to pen her paintings.

I was always jealous of my little sister’s name. I asked my mother why she did not name me Mưa. No one named Mưa as I know of.   Châu is more common name for both boys and girls in Vietnam.

In the birth certificate for my little sister, she officially named my sister Huỳnh Thủy Minh.

She named my little sister WITH and AFTER your name, Ba Minh.

But back then she explained to everyone that she named my sister Minh because she gave birth to her in Sài Gòn, the city has a different name as Hồ Chí Minh, our once beloved President.

So while I wrote this, I thought this was not true but I would take my mother’s explanation for the sake of my fond memory of my mother. It would squeeze my heart bleeding if I admitted that my mother lied to me about that. That was her decision. If she lied, she did it with good intentions to protect the three of me, my brother and my sister from falling apart as a broken family. She always reminded to three of us that we shared the same parents. Three of us carry my father’s last name. Huỳnh.

This morning I wrote my sister’s name down in my notebook. I burst and cried out loud.

Huỳnh Thủy Minh. My father would have known that my sister was not his blood. Our family was broken anyway. He asked for a divorce. He walked away. He sucked it in. He allowed my little sister to have his last name. He would never say much anything.

My sister’s name now reminds me of my father, my mother, and you, Ba Minh.

Faith is intertwined? No? Yes? I am not sure.

Ba Minh.

That was my mother’s nature of dealing with life. Hidden and revealed at the same time. I realized she kept her stories within our names. It would be up to us to figure out later.

I remember what the fox said to the little Prince, "it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” ( The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint Exupéry).

I thought I would write to you, Ba Minh.

Turns out I write things out loud so I can understand my mother on a deeper level. Also, I started to come to terms with what my father did back then. He did what the man with honor had to do in that situation. He walked away. He stayed silent about the whole thing.

What came out from my heart today reveals the truth.