The Reality Of War

In nearly every house in Vietnam is a Buddhist shrine with pictures of relatives who have died. Ninety nine percent of the time there are pictures of someone's mother and father or grandparents. To be honest, I'm not exactly sure how it works but the basic idea is you burn incense and fruit in front of the shrine for your deceased loved ones.

On Sunday I asked Huyen if my family and I could see the upstairs of her house. She agreed and took us upstairs with her father. In the one room upstairs was a bed (which Huyen and her brother and sisters sleep in), more ceramics for sale, and a little shrine. There were two pictures hung on the wall above the shrine. One picture was of Huyen's Grandmother and the other picture was of Huyen's Uncle -- her father's brother. On the way back down the stairs Huyen's father stopped at the shrine and told us (via Huyen's translation): "This is my brother. He died fighting in the American War." Huyen's father said this with no resentment or anger; he was just telling us about his brother. In the car on the ride home, Huyen said to me, "My Uncle was very handsome. However, he died before he got married or had children."

Seeing the picture of Huyen's Uncle hit my Dad pretty hard. The next day he was still thinking about it and told me it was on his mind when I first saw him that morning. He said that he knew Americans who died in the Vietnam War, but seeing someone from the other side -- and someone's loved one -- was bothering him. As my father has said before, "Nobody wins in war."

The thought that kept crossing my mind was how amazingly forgiving people can be. Huyen's family welcomed my family into their house with open arms despite us coming from the country which killed her Uncle. I keep asking myself, "Would I be as forgiving if the roles were reversed?"