Almost 30 years ago, I asked my father that question. I was sitting across from him, in the family restaurant. There was no customers. Il regardait au lointain, et me disait: Chết đâu có gì mà sợ, con. Ba chỉ lo cho các con còn nhỏ, không ai nuôi. Nothing to be scared of, daughter. I’m just worried you children will grow up without me.

The night he passed away, he was no longer conscious and aware of our presence. He kept talking to Ôn Mệ, to his friends long gone. I believe the angels came to welcome him back to the other world. This life represents just a short trip in our long journey of existence, and death is just the end of the cocoon’s life for the butterfly to emerge.

So many events are happening to me in the last few months, making me wonder if there’s a message waiting to be delivered. I feel like my life is about to wrap around, the two ends of the rope coming together into a circle. Everything seems to be sorting out. People I had not seen for more than 3 decades are coming back into my life. Unhappy emotions that I had buried down are evaporating. Issues that I couldn’t express or handle are brought out with no emotion attached and no blame put. It’s like things are getting resolved. If so, why would they now, unless it’s time for me to go to the next step?

I’m sure you’ve heard of this advice before: live as if tomorrow is your last day. I really don’t think anyone cares to put any thought into it. I didn’t. And I still don’t. It’s so deep it’s crap …. But I do think of the things I want to do before I die. Except I don’t know what they are. I’m lost.

Hạt bụi nào hóa kiếp thân tôi
Để một mai tôi về làm cát bụi
…
Bao nhiêu năm làm kiếp con người
Chợt một chiều tóc trắng như vôi
Lá úa trên cao rụng đầy
Cho trăm năm vào chết một ngày

The grain of dust that morphed into me
So that one day I return to sand and dust
…
So many years of living
When suddenly in one afternoon hair turns white
Dying leaves falling
A hundred years in one day I enter death