shadows

I don't always come to the right conclusion, or connect the right dots, because it's hard for me to get away from the shadow of my own experiences and prejudices.

When I was twenty on a trip to Vietnam, my brother Nhan stuck a package of postcards of Ho Chi Minh in my bag. When I emptied the contents of my bag onto the table, my father saw the cards and went crazy.

"I fought against this bastard, and you go and buy pictures of him?"

My father looked at me long and hard then stormed out the room. Dumbfounded, I stood there because I've never seen my father go off like that before (well except for the one time two months ago, but in his defense my mother had it coming---that woman knows how to needle. My father is like a bag of Orville popcorn in the a very slow cooking microwave. My mother has been cooking him painfully for 40 plus years and you know what happens when one kernel gets going. POP POP POP POP. Saw the whole thing. It was awesome!)

Anyhow, my ball-less brother, the owner of the postcards, said nothing. Saw the steam train coming and just let me get run over.

For the past sixteen years, when I think about this story three things jumps out at me...

1. How mad my father got.

2. How easily i brushed it off. the war is over, get over it kind of mentality.

3. What a balls-less brother I have!

So translation, my father was wrong for yelling at me for something that's not my fault...those were my shadows and it followed me until recently.

Anyhow, the other day a customer of mine told me how my father had talked to her about the war.

NOTE: my mother talks to me nonstop about things, but my father doesn't really mention much about anything.

She said he told her about a conversation he overheard between two boys. A conversation that he said had haunted him the day he witnessed it.

He was a soldiers fighting against Ho Chi Minh's forces. And like other soldiers, he was stationed in a village, living among the villagers. The soldiers take turns patrolling the area outside the village, then come home to rest. My father overheard a little boy asking a friend, "my father came home today, did yours?"

That is my father's shadow. The Orville bag has been cooking for a while on the Ho Chi Minh thing. I don't want to be the flame that ignites it anymore. My shadow is going take a backseat to my father's on this one.