Pacific Revisited

Today words popped off my brain and into words.  Too fast to construct effectively – I'll go back and flesh out and do surgery later.  For now, just get the words.

An excerpt:

"June 4, 2005.  It has been 21 years since my family got on a leaky boat and left Vietnam...

I lived with Auntie for 4 months while Dad slept in different homes and hotels every couple of days. Sometimes he would go back to our blue white home at night and take a couple of things to sell. After a while, he didn’t dare return to our neighborhood anymore as he came back one day to discover that the furniture was broken into and our possessions were in disarray. The công an had begun questioning the neighbors, but they knew nothing except that the Fisher family was on an extended vacation to visit family in the rural provinces...

Dad used his connections to buy his own boat. I remember him taking me one day down to the wharf for a stroll. We walked slowly by a boat with red, white and green painted on the front in the motif of unblinking eyes, all glare and sneering. The boat was a leaky box with rotting wood, barely sea-worthy. But at least it had a new engine. Dad also kept watch on Mom, chasing down petty officials who needed sugar or money, getting their tips to the prison location. He asked Grandmother to send Mom care packages, often food and other knick knacks. Often times, he would include a toilet paper, where he would scribble messages inside, unrolling and the rolling back the fine paper to hide any trace of abnormalities. They communicated this way for months, Mom listening while Dad wrote. Once or twice, Mom was able to pass information to the prison warden, which then made its way to his wife, who then told her brother and subsequently Dad. It was one of the few times in their relationship that Dad did all the communicating while Mom listened.

Sitting alone in her cell, she found that her next door neighbor was a minister, chained for proselytizing and differing too much with the state’s atheist position.  As he prayed each morning and afternoon and as his days were sprinkled with hymnals, she became a witness to the theology of redemption and salvation, of love personalized and hope in a better life down the road – of possible circumstances in dreams that did not reflect her current absurd circumstances. She began speaking to her prison mate, slowly working to sing unfamiliar songs to pass the time, gradually finding a way to keep sane, to keep faith and to keep her strength and identity. By the time she got out, through Dad’s connections and choice payments, Mom was on the brink of belief, calmer and more assured that somehow, the family will gain the better life in her dreams – that our afterlife will happen before everlasting life.

And so instead of crossing the river, we attempted to cross the sea."