SN: When I read your book (Ghost Of), there were a lot of memories and thoughts that resonated with me that I had to come to grips with, like learning to let go from my own losses during that time. And while reading it, I’ve also been processing how interconnected, yet disconnected the Vietnamese community is where we grew up. I never understood why that was the case until much later, but my hopes were that we could build back some semblance of it back so we could help each other through those tough moments like what you and your family had experienced.
In absorbing some of the themes you delved into, I started to notice over time the visible separations in other people’s lives. I saw how those who aren’t where they want to be in their own respective lives dealt with major anxiety and loneliness because we’ve been conditioned to compare lifestyles. It’s like high school where everybody is kind of on the same level, but as time passes, things like finances, careers, romantic relationships create this divide which can affect people in a weird way. I realized everyone needed to grow apart from all that and continue to work to complement each other in our later years. That’s why I believed that over a stretch of time, either relationships can grow stronger or distant. This commonly happens within our own family dynamics as well.
DKN: What wise, astute observations you’ve made over time. And yes, how true about the anxiety and loneliness that plagues us when we compare ourselves to others.
I’m thinking, now, about how we’ve only recently crossed paths in person (via Long Beach’s AAPI Festival of Books in May 2023), how we never really had much of a connection aside from those earlier moments when we were in elementary school. Time surprises, continuously.
SN: I’m aware that you and I have a very uniquely disjointed connection/relationship. We’ve encountered each other across three different decades.
Regardless, I felt extreme remorse and concern that something like this happened to someone that I shared fond memories with as a kid. I’m so proud of you and all of the acclaim that you’ve received, but I really wish you didn’t have to write that book under those circumstances.
DKN: Me too, Steve. I had a whole other manuscript from grad school I had been sending out to contests. After Oliver died, I wrote all these intense poems that inevitably coalesced into a collection.
SN: How has your relationship with religion been affected after Oliver’s passing?
DKN: Our family, while Vietnamese Buddhist, isn’t really religious. So, I’ve never had any relationship with religion, honestly. Perhaps funny of me to say, but I don’t even really “believe” in ghosts–I’m fascinated with the idea of things which haunt, but not like Casper the ghost. I believe that my parents’ early childhoods in Vietnam and flight post- Fall of Saigon continues to cast a long shadow over them, over their children (me and my siblings).
SN: There is a Buddhist lantern floating ceremony that takes place every year around Memorial Day weekend in Hawaii that thousands of visitors from all around the world attend. It’s very similar to another event they organize somewhere in Central Vietnam (Hội An).
The temple that I belong to just attended this past weekend to participate and pay their collective respects through these messages that are written on floating lanterns. It is an event of personal reflection, remembrance, and gratitude to all of those who we have loved and supported, but unfortunately, are no longer with us. Do you want to know what I wrote on my lantern?
DKN: Yes!
SN:
“Oliver,
Your eldest sister wrote a beautiful poetry book about you. I think you would be very proud of her. Wherever you are, hope you are at peace and one with the universe.
Prayers from a
fellow Nguyen”
