The body vs. the mind

A few final hours in Saigon. Tomorrow morning, we will fly back to Seattle, concluding our 2-week vacation in Vietnam. Both my grandparents have been in and out of the hospital a few times this year; providing care is becoming increasingly challenging. So, our family convinced them to leave the countryside for some time and stay with us in the city. I call them Ngoại - that’s how we refer to our grandparents on our mother’s side in Vietnamese. If you know my Ngoại, you know the city is their worst nightmare. Every time they come here, they give it a maximum of three days and then insist on returning to the countryside right away. They prefer to stay busy, ensuring the weeds aren’t taking over the garden and the fish are fed on time, and only with homemade food. The challenge is that the garden is the size of a small farm, and there are a few hundred kilos of fish in the pond. This setup used to be their work, and now, ambitious hobbies for two people at 92 and 90.

This year, they have been here for weeks already, and my mom was trying to convince them to stay for another three months, until the end of the year. When I asked my mom how they reacted, she told me they were quiet, yet didn’t say no. This time, they knew they needed care, and I knew I needed to see them. I came back to Vietnam to see my grandparents; it was the birthday present that I gave myself.

We had a farewell dinner with my relatives. My mom and aunts cooked a multi-course, southwest Vietnamese feast. There were 19 of us, and we got as rowdy as we could. We drank, took shots with my grandpa (I know!); my cousins even had a drinking match going on.

During dinner, my grandpa suddenly turned to Dan and spoke some French words. We laughed and asked him why he was speaking French to an American. Well, in his defense, these invaders, they’re all the same anyway. We were also trying to get my grandma to say “How are you” to Dan. She was shy, shaking her head, and refusing to say it. We needed an incentive. We said we would offer her 50K Vietnamese dong; she still said no. Once we doubled it to 100K, then she started to say it, and we all burst into laughter. It was a high-energy, noisy, and good-natured crowd.

It was getting late; I took Ngoại upstairs to their bedroom to rest. When we got to the door, grandma gave me a long kiss on the cheek, held my hand, and said, “While you’re out there, if something happens to me, don’t be sad; be happy for me. Just hold your hands together and pray for me three times.” “Grandma, please don’t say that,” I replied back and held her closer.

Suddenly she looked to the ground, clutched the pillow in her hand, her body paused as her eyes started to water. I hugged her and leaned my head onto her shoulder. My family saw and came over to support her.

“Thôi con đi đi!” - “Well, you should go.” Taking a deep breath, she said.

I walked her back to the room. She sat down on the side of the bed, still holding tight to her pillow, and was quiet.

My grandpa was sitting next to the bed. Both his vision and hearing have become worse these days; he could barely know that I was in the room. “Grandpa, it’s me, Thịnh. I’m heading out now, so I want to say goodbye.” I wished him good health, told him he should try to smoke less, and that I couldn’t wait to hang out with him next year. He paused for a second, “I don’t know, my body is very weak now, dear. My head is okay, but my body is very weak.” I greeted both my grandparents a few more times as I slowly left the room.

I went downstairs with my family gathering around the dinner table. One by one, they started crying. We tried to make fun of each other and laughed the emotions off.

In that moment, our family acknowledged that they had started to grieve and feel the coming of the inevitables. It could be years, months, weeks, who knows. But tonight, we were present and together for another time. We cried because we also knew what we witnessed was a beautiful moment. It’s the bond that makes uncertain goodbyes hard to process. Tonight, our love for one another was palpable.

It’s the struggle of the brain and the body as you get frail. One is likely to deteriorate faster than the other. For my grandparents, it’s the body that is running ahead of the mind. They know it too and perhaps are also grieving for how limited the time they have left.

Earlier this week, I asked my mom how she’d feel when that day comes. She told me she’d feel at peace for them, “I don’t have regrets, and we’ve had many beautiful years,” she said. I asked her if today were our last day on Earth, would she choose the body or the mind? She chose the mind. I paused for a second and nodded my head. “So do I,” I said. I’d rather look at my loved ones, let the eyes speak, and feel my heart breaking one last time before completing this life cycle.

I reminisce the many summers and holidays we spent in the countryside together with my cousins and relatives. Ngoại had been nursing the garden and saving the fruits so by the time we arrived, we could climb up and pick them. There were fresh longans, dragon fruits, papayas, plums, mangoes, guavas, and many more. They had been taking care and watching the fish so we could cook dinners without buying much from the market. These days, they couldn’t see as clearly, but they can still smell. They could tell when the jackfruits are ready and ask my uncle to pick and send them to the city so we all could share the treat. Until this day, their home in the countryside continues to be a refuge for many of us. What Ngoại have achieved was to build a home and teach us how to nurture it.

It’s almost midnight; I hugged everyone and headed out to the taxi. My family all gathered around the gate. Looking out through the car window, I saw many hands waving. It was déjà vu; I had seen this before. These were the same faces, hands, hearts that stood there at the airport gate, sending me off when I left Vietnam for the first time.