No Damaged Petals
DISCLAIMER: This blog contains information related to the Vietnam War and may be triggering for some readers. If you have a personal history of trauma, please consume with care and discontinue reading at any time you feel any discomfort.
For centuries, songs, poems, novels, films, philosophies and theories have been written to try to convey and define this thing called Love. So many fairytales have attempted to capture its timelessness and powerful rapture. Humans have gone to wars with each other, conquered lands, moved mountains and crossed oceans, to chase after its heels, only to fall on their knees at its feet.
Here in our modern world, we even have a day dedicated to it. Because of that, Love now becomes a commodity and is packaged in one highly commercialized holiday, that which many businesses look to profit off of its name. And every year, as soon as January begins, the pressure to look for Love, take Love for a ride, and put Love on display is mounting for everybody, singles and couples alike. If this Love thing is such a big deal, then why is it celebrated for only one day? Why is it that Love is somehow reduced to just one notion of romantic love? Who is the fool that did this to Love?
Many forms of Love
Back in college, Love came to me in eight combinations through the Triangular Theory, as presented on a PowerPoint slide that my professor put up during her lecture. According to this theory, the main ingredients are Intimacy, Passion and Decision/Commitment. Depending on the combinations of the ingredients, they can produce eight different kinds of Love: Non-Love, Liking, Infatuated Love, Empty Love, Romantic Love, Companionate Love, Fatuous Love, and Consummate Love.
Intrigued by this theory, I later tried to cook up my own definitions of Love, after having spent years looking for it in all the wrong places and mistaken its lookalike, Lust, for the real gold. By 2010, I made my commitment to begin my journey to find my way home, back to Love.
The truth is, theories and words all sound beautiful, but it’s always the real stories of Love, the witnessing of Love, the giving and the receiving of Love, from small gestures to big sacrifices that one makes in the name of Love, not just for themselves or for their beloved, but for others, for greater causes, and for humanity, right in the midst of the ordinary everyday moments, that which are the definitions of grander Love. Yet these forms of Love are so often forgotten and not celebrated in our society.
While contemplating about the many forms of Love, I reflected on the significant relationships I have had over the years. Two men came to my mind—my father and Ben.
From Fall of 2009 through Spring of 2010, I rotated through a Dialysis Clinic as a medical social worker. This assignment was to test the versatility of my social work skills, since my populations of interest were youth and young adults, and my prior years of work experience were of different capacity.
Most of the patients on that floor were seniors, and some middle-age adults. They were all of various demographics—different race, gender, marital status and social economic status. One thing I saw at first glance was that diseases and chronic illnesses like this do not discriminate. On that floor, the treatment room was quite cold and sterile, with an unpleasant odor permeating the air and high mortality rate expected.
There, I came across many frail faces and delicate bodies that had weathered many storms and lived through decades of life’s ups and downs. My first thought was, What can I offer these individuals who have lived so many years ahead of me?
My then supervisor, Joe, a humble man and a kind human being, was experienced in his role and knew this population well. He shared this gem of wisdom with me, The best gift you can offer them is the gift of listening.
The Art of War
It was on that floor that I met Ben—he was quite a character who took the spotlight during my time there. Being in his early 80s, his cognitive abilities remained quite sharp. Born into upper middle class, he carried a certain lightness about him that was hard to miss. Always holding a newspaper and drifting deeply into his reading, he let the world around him fade away while he was there for treatment.
The first time I greeted him, he glanced at me and responded with a generic Hello, How are you doing? He then quickly turned away and ignored the remaining of me after that, signaling me to leave him alone.
Determined to establish a therapeutic relationship with him, I pulled up a chair and parked right next to him the second time around. I respectfully introduced myself to him and since my name easily gave away my ethnicity, he turned and sternly looked at me with these questions, You’re Vietnamese? Which part of Vietnam are you from? Caught by surprise, I proudly let him know that I hail from a beautiful coastal resort town of South Vietnam.
He followed up with a question that made my heart sink, Do you know what the Vietnam War did to my son?
I knew then, through his tone and reactions, that somehow by being me, with this flesh and bones, and my carrying this cultural identity as a young immigrant woman from Vietnam, had served as a huge trigger for him.
I took one deep breath and exhaled, Unfortunately, I don’t. Please tell me what happened.
I never saw so much emotion churned out of this man until then, as he took me back to some important moments of his life in the 1960s. He talked about his protest against this war, and his efforts to convince his son not to go to Vietnam.
He recalled, I tried to stop him. I tried to stop him from going. But he did not listen to me. He said he had to serve his country. And he has never been the same since he came back.
I stayed and listened. Those moments expanded and contracted the space between us, and that session seemed to last forever. Through his storytelling, I heard and saw this man’s Love for his son spilling out of him. I couldn’t help but thought, the Vietnam War ended more than 30 years ago, after the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. And here, this frail and sick man still carried this war in him all these years, a war that he didn’t even physically fight. Then, I was reminded of my father, who was an educator prior to the war, who actively mobilized his community, exercised his military intelligence in the political warfare, and commanded troops in his role as the First Lieutenant during that war.
Ben had no idea that I know that war quite intimately since I lived vicariously through my family’s legacy and my father’s war stories for much of my childhood. I learned so much about the psychology and the art of war through my father. Over the years, I must have collected a few different copies of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, though none of the English version has captured the true essence of Sun Tzu’s philosophy as compared to the one in my native language or the one my father had shared.
Ben had no idea that while the United States mourned the lives of some 50-thousand fatal casualties from that war, millions of Vietnamese civilians lost their lives and many more died at sea. Ben had no clue that the US government had deployed Agent Orange to Vietnam and used it as chemical weapon during the war. It not only permanently destroyed the land and the soil where our crops were once fertilized and grown. It has also caused miscarriages, skin diseases, cancers, birth defects, and deformity in newborns; many still live in orphanages today. Yet, none of this was documented in American history book.
Ben had no idea that because of his family’s privilege and resources, his son was able to receive the mental health treatment that he needed upon his return home, while men like my father, not only lost their country and were torn apart from their loved ones, their identity and dignity were stripped way from them as they had to spend the following years in the Re-education Camp (fancy name for prison) right in their own homeland after Vietnam fell under the Communist regime. I wondered if Ben cared to question what that war and the enduring trauma did to men like my father, my family and the people of Vietnam.
I didn’t tell Ben about all that history; it was not my job. Instead, I sat there and held space for Ben’s feelings as he processed his thoughts and past memories, the same way I held space for all that which was going on inside of me. Rather than focusing on the differences between us and counting many reasons why I could easily discontinue my session and end my therapeutic relationship with Ben, I found the common thread that connected both of us—that we both have loved ones that are deeply wounded by this war, that we both have endured the same pain, and that our hearts have been broken from seeing the long-lasting impacts of this war. I took another deep breath and asked about his son, his other adult children, his grandchildren and the rest of his family.
No Damaged Petals
We spent the following weekly sessions and the months after that to help him unpack and process some more, making meaning of his roles as a father and grandfather, and reviewing his life’s milestones and achievements. Long before I knew, I looked forward to seeing him every week and he seemed quite eager, excited and ready to engage with me.
By Christmas of 2009, he no longer talked about the war or his son who is the veteran. Instead, he talked about The Nutcracker. He asked me if I heard of classical music and knew what ballet is. I snickered under my breath, sensing the pinch of his condescending question. Ben must have thought that I was some country girl who just made her way up to the big city for the first time.
I shared with Ben that I was introduced to classical music as a child by my father—I prefer Beethoven and he likes Chopin. My father took pride in teaching himself how to play the flute and I wanted to learn how to play the guitar. Because of my small frame, he bought me a mandolin instead, thinking that I could wrap my arm over it more easily than a big guitar. As it turned out, he enjoyed playing that mandolin more than I did.
We both share the same Love for classical French music, since my father grew up learning French, reading French literature, and loving foreign films. He has always been a literary man, a writer and a creative soul underneath that hardcore exterior. I have often wondered, what would have become of him if that war didn’t happen.
I let Ben know that ballet is not my cup of tea but I love Salsa dancing, remembering how alive, happy and free I have always felt whenever I am on that dance floor. Ben encouraged me to go see The Nutcracker anyway. He said that if I have the chance, I should catch the San Francisco Ballet because it’s world-class. I then asked Ben if he heard of Leonardo da Vinci or knew why Mona Lisa is so famous—something I had learned in third grade during my weekend art class back in Vietnam. He looked dumbfounded and said nothing. I later challenged Ben to take his wife for some Salsa dancing. I teasingly told him, You’ve got to take her for a few spins and give her a dip. The ladies LOVE the dip! Trust me, she’ll fall madly in love with you all over again. He blushed and I laughed.
By February 2010, the Friday leading up to Valentine’s Day, Ben brought in two buckets of yellow roses. My supervisor, Joe, told me that it’s tradition—Ben has done this for years as a way to show appreciation to the staff. That day was a busy day for me as I was preoccupied with other patients that I didn’t get a chance to stop by to check in with Ben. Thankfully, my supervisor did. Before I got ready to clock out for the day, Joe casually relayed the message that Ben asked to see me as he had been waiting for me all day.
It was a little past five. The treatment room had cleared out as many staff had gone home for the day. Ben still sat there immersed in his newspaper again. I walked up and smilingly greeted him, Hello Ben. What are you still doing here?
He quickly put away his newspaper, got up from his chair and lovingly greeted me back. He then reached to the side of his chair, pulled out a yellow rose and handed it to me. He said softly, I saved this rose for you. I saw how busy you were today and was afraid that you couldn’t get to the rose in time. I already asked Joe. He said it is okay for you to receive this rose as a gift.
Pleasantly surprised, I looked adoringly at Ben and at this beautiful rose, noticing that it had no damaged petals. As if he could read my mind, he reassured me, I picked the most beautiful one. I took great care of it. It stayed by my side all this time.
Thank you, Ben. It’s beautiful. I said, feeling so honored by this man. He and I exchanged goodbye and parted ways soon after that.
I left the room with the rose—the rose with no damaged petals. No one knew the significance of that rose better than me.
***Names were changed and other details were left out to ensure privacy and confidentiality of the people in this story.