Prior to this vacation, I was telling everyone that this trip was the marriage tour… Where I would meet and visit with all of Tam’s family members. We definitely all our family activities by this point in the trip. and today was the last full day we’d have in Kiến Tường/Mộc Hóa. We woke up early and headed over to the house to help out. We’d be hosting a huge lunch with all the friends and family in the town. Today, Uncle Dad mentioned that the hotel we’d been staying in used to be a prison. His friend used to work there. Of course he knew that and of course someone he knew worked there.

With the help of Tam’s cousins, we set up the house for probably 40 people. When everyone started to arrive, the family set out the offerings… We prayed downstairs, prayed upstairs, and waited for everyone to finish. When Tam’s grandma’s sisters arrived, they prayed too and we could started eating. I don’t remember what we ate, but I remember everyone having a ton of fun.

Being in Tam’s family’s hometown was my favorite part of the trip. It was nice to see Auntie Mom and Uncle Dad in a place that’s theirs. I knew Uncle Dad is someone who’s personable, chatty, and generous and I got to see how that’s played out in his hometown. So many people picked him up, brought him home, and helped him prepare for this visit. They were sitting here celebrating his homecoming and children’s marriages. Auntie Mom is someone who loves her family and wants to make sure everyone is taken care of, and I saw that in the care she had for the shrines, how she lovingly fussed about food with her sisters, and made sure that we paid our respects to everyone living and dead. It’s so special to see people you know operate with ease in a place they understand innately. With the language barrier, the connection between the cousins could be hard to maintain so I appreciated the temporary beauty.

This little pocket of Vietnam is somewhere that Auntie Mom and Uncle Dad spent their young adult years before moving to America. Leaving somewhere they knew and were comfortable with is a huge sacrifice to give their kids opportunities that they wouldn’t otherwise have… And yet, you know your kids might not have the same connection to home as you do with this choice. You don’t know what was sacrificed until much later.

While I haven’t gone to the Philippines with my parents yet, I often think about the same thing with our family. My parents gave up a lot for us to have more opportunities in the US, but it came at a cost too. We’ve never visited, and I often wonder if it’s because of the sadness that they left behind from their lives before they got married. Survival looked like practicing English with us because people commented on my parents‘ accented English. It also looked like not going home because we couldn’t afford it, or maybe their jobs didn’t allow enough time for it. Survival meant avoiding the necessary healing for the trauma they carried with them from the Philippines. There’s a lot of joy in our lives, but there’s also a lot of unhealed grief. We’ve lost some threads that tied us home, but I hope we can keep some of it alive in our ways.

After lunch, we cleaned up and rested. We visited the homes of the aunties and uncles one last time on the quiet streets. Though much of this town hadn’t changed in years, we saw a beautiful new hospital built on its outskirts. I wondered if it meant that they expected more growth in the future. Tam said that his mom rode on the back of a moped all the way to Saigon just to give birth to him. The roads weren’t even paved then, so a lot could have gone wrong, but they made it anyway. Those same roads weren’t paved yet on his last visit 10 years ago, resulting in his own motion sickness.

I wondered what this place would be like in another few years. It seemed like a border town that could only grow. I wondered who would still be there the next time we visit. We wouldn’t be the same people visiting on our next trip, and the town won’t be the same on our next trip either. My first trip to Vietnam was so wonderful and I felt so lucky to be able to experience with Tam and his family.

The next morning, we said goodbye to the Aunties and Uncle Dad’s best friend. Our driver honked all the way down the now paved roads to the airport, then we said our goodbyes. The rest of the family would be going home and Tam and I would be on our way to Singapore.