VHM_0098

Written by Vicky Tuyền Nguyễn

IN PRISON, MISSING THE YOUNG WIFE

My parents got married when my mother had just finished high school, in 1970, when she was just 19 years old.

The day Saigon fell, my father was a Lieutenant, Head of the Psychological Warfare Department, working at the City Hall.

My father told me… In the last days of April 1975, my father was the one who arranged and guided the military officers to get off the ship at Bach Dang wharf to evacuate, and my father was the last one to get off the ship…

But because he loved my mother who was pregnant with my younger brother, he couldn’t bear to leave, so he decided to stay and climbed ashore amidst the clamor of his friends and comrades.

At the end of June 1975, along with hundreds of thousands of military and civil servants of the Republic of Vietnam, my father had to present himself to the Saigon-Gia Dinh Military Management Committee, then was imprisoned in concentration camps that the communist government euphemistically said were "re-education camps."

The first year my father was in prison, the communist government did not allow any visits.

Then, when my mother gave birth to my younger brother, almost a year later, she was able to visit my father for the first time.

As a husband who could not be with his pregnant wife, as a father who could not see his child when he was born, in a cold prison with no known return date, the longing for his wife and children tormented and gnawed at my father's soul every minute and every hour... It forged the will to create souvenirs to give to my wife and children in a situation where everything was lacking, seemingly impossible…

Whenever my mother went to visit my father, sometimes she brought back a wooden box with 24 letters engraved for me and my younger brother to learn, sometimes a comb with the names of my parents engraved on one side, and a pair of mandarin ducks on the other, sometimes a charcoal drawing of my mother drawn by my father, sometimes a comb with my name engraved on it…

Most special was the photo frame that framed my parents’ wedding photo with the love poem my father wrote for my mother:

“Overflowing with love and yearning

I made a small gift

for the young, virtuous wife

All the love and dreams

Living a full life for each other”

On the back of the photo frame was a stand with two letters Đ&T engraved on it, the first letters of my father and mother’s names, and a meaningful Chinese phrase:

“Patience and harmony between husband and wife make a family”.

This keepsake was given to my mother by my father during one of her visits to Suoi Mau camp around 1978…

After visiting my father and returning with souvenirs in hand, my mother suffered long sleepless nights of longing and tears.

These keepsakes were made by my father from pieces of aluminum collected and saved from Thanh Ong Nam Prison Camp, Hoc Mon. Before April 1975, this camp was the headquarters of the 5th Engineering Construction Group of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, and my father and his fellow prisoners had to make tools such as saws, files, hammers, etc., sharpening them from pieces of aluminum, iron, or stones they collected…

My father was released from prison on December 5, 1980, from Suoi Mau camp.

My family immigrated to the United States under the HO program in November 1994.

My father died in Orange County in May 2018 from liver cancer, a complication of Hepatitis C from his years in prison.