|
While I
stopped at the airport in Hong Kong in 2006, I met three brothers coming
from the U.S.
They looked so happy, engaging in a lively conversation among themselves
as though they hadn’t seen each other for decades. They were
talking in Vietnamese. Out of curiosity, I asked them where they
were from and where they were headed to. They replied that they
were from three different cities. One was from San
Jose, one was from Houston and
the youngest one was from Washington
D.C. They were headed
to Saigon to attend the funeral of their
father. I asked why they were so happy while their father passed
away. They said I didn’t know the circumstance surrounding
them. Indeed they hadn’t seen each other for years. Even
though they lived in the U.S.,
they seldom had a chance to visit each other. They were so busy
working trying to make a better living for their families. One
worked fourteen hours a day at a restaurant and delivered food orders.
One brother had two jobs—working at the post office during the days and
working as a janitor at nights at a school. The last one worked at
a supermarket and had to raise two children as a single parent after his
wife was killed in a car accident. They hardly had a chance to see
each other face to face and talk freely as they would when they were
young back home. Though the passing of their father was indeed a
tragedy to them, their assembly after so many twenty or more years
definitely made them joyful.
The moral of the story is that in this
fast-paced society, sometimes it takes a sad event such as the passing of
a father or mother to bring the siblings together. My wife strikes
it right at the point when she says, “While your mom is still around, you
brothers and sisters get together every once in a while. But after
she is gone, who would come to the empty house to see each other.”
Enjoy the
story. Stay healthy!
Cherish your
loved ones as you would live today as your last day on earth!
Vinh
Ly 李庆荣
Northern
California, U.S.A., 11 November 2011
|
