Running Flip-Flops
The first time I ran was when I was eight years old. I ran in a pair of flip-flops. I don't remember how far I ran but I ran for more than few hours. I ran the day my two brothers and a cousin died in a motorcycle accident after they spent the day touring the country side and learning how to fish. At dinner time that evening I ran from our house to a place just outside of Saigon where one of my sisters was living at the time. I remember I started to walk and the next thing I knew, I was having a burning sensation in my chest, my throat, and I was gasping for air. I realized then that I was running. I thought because I was sad and in shock so I couldn't breathe normally, so I kept on running. Even when I stopped crying I kept running and my lung kept burning and I was gasping for air. I could see the beating of my heart under my shirt like the speakers with loud music on. I kept on running.
Pray and Deceive
It was a Sunday afternoon in mid September of 1968, I was walking and eating a popsicle on my way home from a morning of playing with my friends. When I turned the corner to our house, I saw lots of people. These were people I had never seen before and policemen hanging around the front porch of the house. I saw my parents, my mother was crying and my dad looked numb. They saw me but no one came up to me and shushed me away. I fought my way inside the house through the crowd. One of my sisters told me to go upstairs and stay out of the way and all I could muster up to say was, “no." I don’t remember who told me the news of my two brothers and cousin’s motorcycle accident – at the time, all that was known was one had died at the scene but as to who no one was sure. After few minutes, my parents left instructions to one of my siblings and left the house with all the strangers. After everyone left, our housekeeper turned to me and ordered me to not to go anyway and to stay put.
I walked upstairs to the tiny but cozy loft and pulled out a little plastic statue of the Virgin Mary that I kept hidden under my pillow, and prayed. I prayed for my mother to be happy and not crying, I prayed for my father to have his smile back on this handsome face. I prayed for my two brothers to be alive and not hurt. I prayed that my cousin did not have a horrible death. A loud noise from the kitchen woke me up from my nap, and the clock on the nightstand showed quarter after five in the late afternoon. I had been asleep since two in the afternoon while I was praying. I came downstairs and heard my mom screaming and yelling at herself for letting two of my brothers go fishing that morning, my mother was never the same... person again.
I asked my older sister if she was going to take me to visit our brothers, she was crying and said that our brothers and a cousin were killed in the motorcycle accident. I felt like someone just punched me in the stomach to the point that I couldn’t feel it anymore. I went back to the loft, and I started to pray again, but nothing came out of my mouth. I took the little plastic Virgin Mary and put it in my shirt pocket. I wanted to cry but couldn't. I wanted to go down and comfort my mom but I couldn't. I went downstairs and now the house was full of people: the neighbors, my sisters' friends, my brothers' friends, all filled in nooks and corners of our small house.
I went to our next door neighbor's four story building and climbed to the top floor of their house, which was also a big space where we used to play. We used to play up here when the public curfew was 24 hours for few weeks after 1968 Tet's incident – this is when some small guerilla took an advantage of the Chinese New Year to attack the city. I looked down at the street we lived on and took the small plastic statue of the Virgin Mary out of my pocket and threw it straight in the air toward the street below. I didn't care where it landed - that was the first lesson of betrayal I learned at 8 years old: praying did not save lives. Praying gave me hope for the hours that I was sleeping but it did not help my brothers and a cousin back to life.
That evening, my parents and siblings were busy arranging the funeral and investigating the accident: how it happened and who was at fault. Everyone was in shock and no one had mentioned or ordered someone to relay the news to Be, one of my sisters who lived on the outskirts of the city. I wanted to go to find Be and let her know. I wanted her to come home. I sneaked out of the crowded house and started to walk but after few minutes I started to jog because the sun was going down and it was getting dark. I ran along the road leading toward Highway 1 from Saigon to Vung Tau. Highway 1 was the only highway to get out of Saigon to go anywhere. I crossed the bridge as I got near my friend's house and at that point I knew I was very far from home.
My friend's house was just right at the edge of town and was just one of those cluster homes made out of plywood and sheet metal. I ran past her neighborhood and I saw her father cooking behind his food stand with several hungry men waiting and talking with their cigarettes hanging on the corner of their mouths. I wondered what they were talking about and if they had ever watched their parents cry or lost two brothers and a cousin in one day. I wondered if they ever had a very sad day in their life. I wanted to sit next to them and share the laughing conversation as if there was no sadness in the world. I wanted to be one of them smoking and laughing my sadness away.
I didn't know at the time how far the distance was or understood how far a kilometer was, but I know that it usually took more than half an hour or close to 45 minutes by motorcycle. My flip-flops kept slipping off my feet but I was determined to get to my sister's apartment. As I ran I tried to picture the route to her apartment from behind a scooter. I had been there once to visit with my oldest sister a few months after she had moved in. I thought about how much I have missed her and wished she could come home. After I passed the clustered homes, I started to see small part of the countryside and the wire barricade of the army base in the middle of nowhere. The sun had set and the sky had turned from pink to dark purple, to pitch black. The flickering street light along the highway helped me see where I was running and helped me from being afraid of monsters and ghosts.
By the time I got to my sister's apartment, I cried so hard, the type of cry that you can't stop to take a break for air. I saw a man behind the gate sweeping, I asked him to let me in to see my sister but he yelled at me and told me to leave or he was going to call the police to have me arrested or put me in the orphanage. I don't remember how long I was there begging to get in, but in the end, I gave up and started to head back home. I jogged along the shoulder of the highway where it was light enough to see my shadow from one dim street light to the next, the same highway that my brothers and cousin rode on their motorcycle that morning. The sky was pitch black, I saw more stars that night than any other night in my later years. Some stars were more sparkled than others and I wanted to be on one of those sparkling stars. I ran between the darkness of the street and slowed down when I started to see the street light, I kept doing this walk-jog until I got back to the street of my house. By the time I got to the front door I looked down and realized I had blisters on top of blisters between my big toe and second toe on both feet.
Since my two brothers were buried, I haven’t believed in praying. I am not a religious person but I do believe in being kind and friendly to everyone I meet. I do believe praying can give me a sense of hope for few hours, weeks, years, but if the hopeful result lasts that long, then my so called “praying” worked its wonder. I trained to qualify for Boston marathon in the spring and summer of 2007, I have so many problems with running injuries that I almost gave up. I had invested too many miles and hours for me to quit because of the pain here and there. The first few miles into the race, I started to feel the pain. I popped an ibuprofen at mile 2 and started talking to my brothers and my parents (who have also since passed). I asked them if they could help me finish this race without pain. To my relief the pain went away up until mile 14. I popped few more ibuprofen and prayed to my mother and asked her to help me finish my race and in return I would certainly celebrate Chinese New Year the Vietnamese style. Well I finished the race and qualified for Boston, which I ran six months later. I don’t know if the talking/praying that helped me with my race time or the ibuprofen; but I know praying does not work its wonders without iburprofen.
