New Orleans

Last Tuesday morning I received a call from my mom at work informing me my grandmother had passed away. She was just a few weeks shy of her 81st birthday. She wasn't ill, she was just weakened by her recent surgery. Three weeks ago her house was being renovated and in her anxiousness she was walking in and out of the rooms more than usual. She tripped on a basket on the floor and broke her hip. Although she recovered from the surgery quickly, her heart wasn't able to take it and soon after surgery she went on a ventilator and was moved to a nursing home because she needed 24 hour supervision. She hated the nursing home and she hated the breathing tubes. She pulled them out every chance she got. My grandmother was a very stubborn woman. She seemed to be getting better, so when her heart gave out in the early morning hours last Tuesday it was a surprise to all of us. So on Wednesday morning we all flew to New Orleans - my parents, Peter, Michelle, my aunt and uncle, and Michael. I have been to New Orleans almost every year since I was little, but this was the first trip to New Orleans where we flew. It was weird because none of us had ever seen the New Orleans airport before.

This was also the first time that I had to wear a white head scarf. White signifies death in Vietnamese culture, and usually family members dress in white robes with white head scarves, but less traditional families wear all black and simply tie the white sheet around their head. We wore black, some wore a combination of white and black, but everyone wore a head scarf. We dressed like this our entire stay in New Orleans. Four days of continuous visits to the funeral home to visit her and pray followed by more prayers at the church and then mass. Each night we congregated at my grandmother's old house and ate. While our days were spent crying, in the evenings at my grandmother's house there was only laughter, reminiscing, and lots of beer. Because of my age I was stuck serving the 40 some odd people - setting up tables, passing out food, cleaning up. My mom, her sisters and my aunts all cooked or prepped in the kitchen and all the men and elders sat at the tables being waited on. My little cousins played video games in another room waiting until it was there turn to be called into the room to eat. It was noisy and hectic and the only thing missing was my grandmother.