There’s no way I can unsee it
“Were you silent or were you silenced?” – Oprah
Dear friends,
“9 months 10 days and pop! A baby is born!”
I casually responded to my mom after she unapologetically told me her retirement plan in the next 5 years.
“I seriously need something to do!” she said, implying a grandchild to look after and kill time.
Her yoga friends and colleagues now address themselves as grandma and grandpa of someone. Their Facebook feeds are drowned in pictures of babies – babies taking showers, babies munching carrots, babies throwing tantrums – submerging their identities under the socially agreeable happiness of three generations under one roof.
Being a citizen of a communist country, mom seems to be obsessed with all kinds of “5-year plans”. Sometimes, those plans even involve visions of 10 years onwards.
I can never recall her as an arbitrary person. Indeed, she at least once was fed up with giving birth to and bringing up a baby.
Who could have just an only child in the 90s Vietnam?
I wanted to tell her I was not afraid of being pregnant. With current innovations in healthcare and access to insurance, I’m 100% confident in my capability to deliver a human being.
At the end of the day, pregnancy is just a period of time. It will come and it will go – pretty much controllable. What I can’t control is the world the baby will be delivered to.
Will it be welcoming? Or will it be filled with pain?
“When heaven gives birth to an elephant, it will gives birth to grass” (Trời sinh voi sinh cỏ) – that’s the Vietnamese proverb ultimately optimistic and clueless people lean on to encourage others having babies.
I’m by no means an optimistic person.
Being born to busy parents, I spent most of my childhood in an adult world, taking naps under editors’ tables listening to the rhythmic sound of typewriters and reading all sorts of breaking news – bombing, killing, raping, lying.
The world I have been looking at is not filtered through rose-tinted glasses.
The Gaza Strip has witnessed the death of more than 14,000 children. How can we still look into our children’s eyes and say “that will be okay”?
As long as there are adults who refuse to say sorry, to admit that they are wrong, to feel ashamed of their own faults, the world will continue being miserable to its tenants.
“The clock is ticking for you, not me though,” my friend bursted into laughter as I shared my pessimism with him.
That moment, I realized, it would not be “tick.. tick… boom”.
At the end of the countdown, here comes silence.
Till next time,
T.
P/S: There might be no newsletter next week since my business trip will span over the weekend. If you don’t mind, I will share some snapshots of Saigon then. Take care!
This week’s top picks
On being born. Mr. Nobody.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Rilke
Jojo Rabbit