Flying Her Home To Viet Nam
A single tear drop slides down the EVA Airlines window as we taxi to the runway at LAX. Tall purple towers glow a goodbye salute. My seat shakes as the wheels of the 777 rumble to the turnaround point to prepare for takeoff. My destination: Viet Nam squeezes up a tear. I refuse to let it out. “Not yet,” I whisper. “Not yet.”
"Finally," she whimpers. Her voice stuns my breath away. I look out the window. Her ao dai shimmers silver white though the clouds. "You think that part of you died in Viet Nam. But that's not completely true,” she says. “You took something and now it's finally going home.”
A lump rolls into a ball in my throat preventing me from swallowing. "What did I take?" I struggle to ask.
"Memories, fear, awe, the beauty and the horror of it all," she says and bows her head. Her pointed straw hat momentarily hides her face.
"I brought you too, didn't I?” I say.
"Yes,” she says as she lifts her head. “And now I am finally going home,"
"Why did you leave?" I ask.
"You screamed every day for me,” she says. “I held your hand and sat by your side. Every day I came to comfort you. I gave you my beauty. I ate your platters of fear but I couldn't eat your shame. So you brought me with you. I made you cry because you made me cry for my children. Whenever you saw Vietnamese people you cried and I cried inside you. I wanted to go home. I wanted to take you back to my home and enjoy Viet Nam like you should have in the first place.”
“Are you the one I saw during the war?” I asked, even though I knew she was.
“Yes I am the Vietnamese woman in the green dress who held your hand and forgave you. Now you can forgive yourself. We are both going home.”
***
The rain persists in Taiwan as I read from the book I had written about my time in the Viet Nam war while we waited to board our connecting flight from Taipei to Singapore. I was surprised to hear my mother's words colored with a strong New Mexican accent as I read her words in the first chapter, “Your letters scared me,” she said. “I cried every time one came through the front door mail slot.”
We board and I take my window seat. Here too, water droplets slide down the plane's window, writing their own stories on the glass. The gray skies lie with the earth and nibble the horizon away as our plane grumbles over the uneven tarmac on its way to the new starting point for takeoff. The sky sheds its tears on the ground.
A soft and tender hand rests on my shoulders. The green dressed lady asks, "Why are you crying?"
I cannot answer.
"I am going home and I am welcoming you to my beautiful country.” she says and bows. “I showed you how beautiful it was in 1972 in spite of the war. It is even more beautiful now. You will see.”
I look out the window. The clouds have eaten the end of the runway for lunch. They are crying laughing tears.
“Fly higher,” the sun beckons to the plane as we ascend into the clouds. “I will brighten your day.”
The clouds whine and cry some more. "This plane is ours," they yell to the sun.
I hear him laugh and see him grin a golden light. “You can have it if it chooses to stay wet and miserable,” the sun says and giggles.
The clouds stick out their wet tongues at the sun. The plane continues to climb. Father sky offers a big blue smile. He teases the clouds by sprinkling sparkles on their tips.
I place my forehead against the plane’s little porthole. The clouds hold their hands on their hips and push out their fat white bellies to block my view below of Viet Nam.
“Not yet,” they tease. “Not yet.”
