2019 was a year of unexpected losses

[Still image from Jean Rouch's 1961 "Chronicle d'un été"]

2019 was a year of unexpected losses. I held my breath at the receiver’s end of the conversation, waiting for my father to finish his thought. Cancer, he supposed, had struck his best friend yet again. My uncle was laying in the hospital bed, waiting for the result of the biopsy. Not much hope remained for a non-cancerous disease, his condition has worsen steadily since a week ago, my father told of his friend, the gentleman I knew as my uncle H, a composer of great fortitude, a friend of my father, a companion of subtle taste in human and their limitations. But for me, more than anything, he embodies the image of a true artist since as long as I could remember my existence. I sensed something wrong in the way his wife, over the phone, couldn’t recognize my voice and identity. “Uncle H is very sick,” she said, before what I surmised to be a string of distress signals took over. I was alone on a road of magenta flowers. Dalat was cold, and infamous for its herald of sadness. When I was younger, as young as I can remember, my father often took me to uncle H’s house. A gorgeous shelter of the art next to the Conservatory of Music in Hanoi, his place was always filled with music, orchestral and reverberating. The piano lay expectantly at a corner, a life-side portrait of his mother in traditional attire at another. I wished to myself, one day my house would look like this. One day I, myself, would make art to fill up a life like him. At the age of 12 my dad found a way to buy me a keyboard, despite much detestation from my mother. Their personalities, like the black and white keys of the piano, brought harmonies at times and discordances at others. The marriage didn’t last. 2019 was a year of unexpected grieves.

Family near and far left a hole in my world. My Indian family woke up one morning without a father. My Indian sister, Hilda, witnessed the passing of her beloved father in her arms. Hearing the news brought me to tears and a thousand regrets not having visited him the year prior when I was back in the country. My Indian father, I. Surresh, was a man of virtue, generosity, and humor. He welcomed me to his home like I was his daughter, giving me a family in a country that has now become another home. I listened to Hilda in silence. How I wished time is something we could all unwind. My Vietnamese father was an architect in the company of composers, painters, and poets. A commoner in the milieu of artists, he often jokingly said he had no idea why his friends decided to get stuck with him. And yet here we go, more than 50 years and counting, by the hours, the life of a great friend ship. A few words I lay down here for my uncle. May he fight bravely. So many awaits the sound of his triumphant symphony.