"They Shut the Door on My Grandmother"

I wish I had spoken with my grandfather one last time before he died. I wish I had gotten to know him better through the years, but until now I was too immature to realize what I was missing out on.

He died peacefully in his room at the Veterans Home of California in Yountville. I wasn't there that day, but I had just visited him on the Fourth of July, along with many other members of my family. I think most of us knew it might be the last time we would see him. I will never forget the image of all my little cousins crowded around his bed at the end of the night, and placing their hands on his. Their hands were small, soft -- his were large with skin so thin you could see the tendons poking out, and I thought about how those hands had tugged on parachute cords, had squeezed the trigger of a machine gun...and had held a baby. His hands had stories. The hands of my little cousins were just beginning their own.

This is what I think about when I read Lam's essay "They Shut the Door on My Grandmother." Lam writes that the nurses in his grandmother's retirement home would rush to shut all the residents' doors when someone died. "The series of doors being slammed shut reminds her of the firecrackers during Tet," he writes. This is an important reflection on how Lam's grandmother thought of death, and it speaks to the cultural attitude Lam describes in the essay. Tet is a Vietnamese festival which welcomes in the spring season and new year, and most people in Vietnam spend the holiday together with their families.

I have never experienced this holiday first-hand -- so, in lieu of a first-hand account, I hope you enjoy these wonderful photostreams on Flickr! These photos will link to their respective photostreams.

This is a glimpse of the celebration to which Andrew Lam's grandmother is referring. I think we can draw a clear parallel between the mention of Tet and Lam's observations on how the Vietnamese and American cultures regard death and dying.

"Living in Vietnam, we used to stare death in the face," Lam writes in the essay. "Though the fear of death and dying is a universal one, the Vietnamese do not hide from it." He goes on to explain that the Vietnamese are very connected to the deceased, to their ancestors, and to the world of the past. I trust that Lam is providing us with a very accurate analysis.

His analysis of American culture in this regard is also very accurate. Lam writes that Americans shy away from death, we laugh at it, we try to pretend that it will never happen -- like it doesn't exist. Americans are all about the now, and all about the future. I think there is something to be said for this attitude of forging ahead, of forgetting the past in order to begin anew -- but I think there is also something to be said about looking back, about remembering.

For example, many Americans have a shamefully inadequate undersanding of history. We have this attitude that history doesn't matter. But I think that we are only harming ourselves by looking at it that way. Our lack of historical knowledge allows politicians to manipulate us, it shuts our eyes to the patterns formed over and over again by cultural and political events. I think that if we could only see through political propaganda, if we could only recognize these patterns, our nation would be a much better place. I think history is an important part of education, but what needs to change is the way in which history is taught. In my experience, today's youth are not being shown the relevance, the connection that history has to today's world. History class is being overlooked as an opportunity to provide young people with not only knowledge, but the habits of mind that are crucial in examining our living world.

I also think that we can find things of value in our own pasts. I like to think that I have the power to pick and choose what characteristics I retain from the culture of my family, and what characteristics I reject. To do this, however, I must know not only myself, but my family's past. For example, I know that my grandfather was a skilled painter. My family hung on to many of his paintings, and I'm happy to say that I have hung on to his old paintbrushes (they are waiting in my art supplies box at this moment -- waiting for me to return to them after finals are over!) and I have also retained his artistic talent. I am only a beginner at painting, but I hope I can hang a work of my own on the wall next to his one day.