Thirty-Three Years
Today is the 33rd giỗ of my father. That is a long time. Long enough that my memories of him are no longer complete. I remember pieces, a voice, a feeling, but not the whole man.
He died young, in a traffic accident while he was out working to support the family. He was also part of the first generation laid off when Vietnam opened its economy. A worker caught in a changing country.
I grew up without the model of a man in the house. My mother and the women around me raised us. They did everything. But there was still an empty chair where a father should be.
That absence followed me. When I became a father myself, I did not know what to do. I had no example to copy. I learned by failing, by guessing, by watching my own children forgive me again and again.
Today we set a small meal on the altar. Fruit, flowers, incense. The same things every year. It is not much, but it is how we keep him here.
I cannot bring him back. I cannot even remember him fully. But I can be the father he did not get the chance to be. Maybe that is the only way I know to say thank you.