I don’t know it it’s my attitude towards death is so different from everyone else in my family or if I am really just insensitive. I’ve refrain from my any commentary on my view towards death in general as I would dig a hole much too deep for a short stay. I can’t talk about death without discussing the meaning of life. It’s interesting to see the variety of belief systems that come into light in a tradegic event such as this. I was slightly surprised that they were going to have a Buddhist ceremony in this but I don’t know any other person in the family has any understanding of Buddhism (except for my father of course!). I just hope that some of them realize the preciousness and opportunity that life presents. I mourn with my family on an emotional level but I wonder what it takes to realize that illusion of the American dream.

It’s always the same when I come back, each time my perspective is progressively farther from their’s. I realize that it’s my changing perspective that creates that barrier between me and them. It’s the same barrier that my father deals with whenever he is mention in a conversation. it’s nothing really overt because our conversations are mostly pleasantries about the mundane things. One of my uncles seriously asked if I was gay and naturally, I told that I wasn’t, yet. I continue to play my stereotype as the far out liberal California success story and leave it at that. Still, there may be hope on this coast because one of my cousin in laws seems to have a hidden inclination towards Buddhism. I am actually staying with them for most of the visit and his home is filled with Buddhist artifacts from their many travels from asia. His karma seems particularly positive given his relative ‘success’ in life but it reminds to be seen because as we all know, good merits do get used up. It would seem that my entire family has been moderately positive karma wise given how fortunate we have been to have arrive to America and succeed within one generation.

The night of my arrival, most of my family was at my aunt & uncle’s place and the mood wasn’t as somber as I thought it would be. I guess it’s been 4 days since the accident and the first couple of days was the heaviest emotionally but by Saturday, most everyone had gone through their personal griefing. That is except for my aunt, who was still in denial that she had just lost her most beloved son. She was catatonic and mute for the past several days. When I finally found the courage to go up to the room to see her, she broke into tears as her I silently hug her. In some respects she was more of a mother to me than my real mother but at the same time I couldn’t officially acknowledge her to that extend. I didn’t have any words to say because I just felt words are inadequate for times like this. I hope that she felt my heart transmission and that it would be sufficient for the time being. I pray that she will find the strength and wisdom to let go of her son. She poured all her love into this one son after the last one had died and now she must learn to how to live for herself again.

I can’t pretend to understand the bond between a parent and their child because of my own upraising and I will not be privy to that opportunity anytime soon. I know I would be more than happy to be a father but sometimes I don’t think it’s in my destiny. sometimes I even think that it would be fine for me to just die somewhere in a cave without anyone really knowing. But then again, I am sure I am not cut out to be yogi, otherwise I would be much deeper in the path if I was meant to be on that route.

I wonder how my grandmother will react to hearing the death of my cousin. She practically raise my cousin as well but now that she is now in Vietnam, my family is still debating if they should tell her or not. It will be very hard on her as well and I guess everyone wonders if she will have the constitution to bear such news. I wonder if my family will return to Vietnam when my grandmother dies. It’s seems like such a strange thing for her to return after being America for 30 years. I think my grandmother is the epitome of a misguide good intention. All she wanted for all of us to go to college and make a decent salary and have a good family. Normally, that seems perfectly logical desire for your grand kids but leaves out the fact that different things make different people happy. In particular, anyone doing anything else not along those lines is a failure in her eyes. In her eyes, I seem to make her very happy because I had played out most those of that scenario but my father and brother is not quite on her good side.

Tomorrow is the big day, as much as I want to take photos, I don’t know if it is appropriate. I will probably do it anyway because this is the stuff of life. I can’t imagine anyone looking at this photos will have a pleasant memory, but life is suffering and we must remind our selves of that.

Well, it turns out I was much more sensitive to his death than i had expected. I cried like a baby but sometimes i think just seeing the suffering of the others made me cry even more because i feel sorry for them. My cousin had a lot of friends that came and everyone in the family was a bit surprised by the turn out. When i finally got the nerve to approach to view him, i was slightly surprised by the state of his face. Since it was my first funeral, i didn’t have a point of reference but his face seem very plastic and almost unreal. I am glad they performed a buddhist ritual and the monk seem to know what he was doing. I had some conceptual understanding of the process but because he spoke all in vietnamese, I didn’t catch all of his words. Although I had carried my camera with me, I didn’t have the strength or was in any stable state of mind to capture the moments. Overall, it was a very draining experience for me but i did feel like i just let my emotions ride through me without holding any thing back. it felt positive to feel the richness of the emotion without being too caught in the current of attachment.