Thầy
Chung is special to me. I knew thầy through cô Kiều Nga, and because cô is
unconventional, thầy is unconventional by association. Cô had, on a busy street
of Saigon, pushed me on my bicycle while riding a motorcycle. In America, she
took me to a gambling establishment and gave me money to play. Thầy treasured cô’s
students, enjoyed our visits, and had travelled with cô to Escondido to watch
me play soccer.
Near
the end of his life, thầy told me and Mai Hương that if he had to choose
between being a man in pain with ten beautiful women surrounding him or being a
man with no pain and no ten beautiful women, he’d choose the latter. Then he
added with a smile that he would worry about getting ten beautiful women later,
after being with no pain. He seemed to be pretty sure of his charm.
At
the last visit, when I wanted to have a picture of us taken together, he said that I’d taken too many
pictures đến mòn cả cái máy ảnh rồi (the camera is already worn out), but he
still posed and I’m glad I have the picture today.
Thầy never lost his sense of humor, at least up to the time I saw him when he was already so sick he couldn’t walk and needed help in so many levels. One evening he told me to go check to make sure all the doors were locked. I was confused. I said, “But… I thought cô wanted the front door unlocked…” He yelled his most ferocious yell “What?” As I looked at him in terror, he burst out laughing, stroke my hair, and said, “Oh poor you. I didn’t realize you’d be so startled and scared.” I joined in his laughter and wanted the moment to last forever. Once cô got him up to take medication, he sang to her and made a pistol sign with his fingers to shoot at a glass of water. When I asked why he wanted to shoot it, he said because it was tasteless. As I was sitting in thầy and cô’s dining room my last day visiting, my cell phone rang. It was thầy. I went into his room. He said he thought I already left. I said “No, but why are you up? You just got a dose of morphine.” He said, “I don’t know. Will you ask cô if she has diluted it?” He asked me to call him after I get home. When we left, cậu Long took him to the porch to say goodbye. I told him he made it hard for us to leave. As we made a U-turn and drove by the house, he was there in the wheelchair waving goodbye. It’s a picture that won’t die in my mind.
My
regret is that I did not fulfill the promise to call thầy every day after the
visit. I was able to call thầy only once. He went into the hospital after that
and never came home.
My
comfort is that I was able to be there and read thầy my poems from báo Cỏ Thơm when he was still alert and that
he was at peace when he died. I believed it would be true when he said he was
going to the place of peace on Monday. So when a text from Bích Ngọc came on
Monday morning waking me up at 5:20am, I knew.
After thầy died, I suddenly
saw for the first time that my 2012 poinsettia plant had bloomed red. I always
kill plants. And here are the red blooms from a poinsettia plant of two
Christmases ago. I told myself it was a sign that thầy is with me. He is
forever in my heart.
For Thầy Chung who went to his place of peace on Monday March 10, 2014. As Chip says, "He is sorely missed."
