When the Questions Stop

When the Questions Stop

Saigon is cool these days, close to Mid-Autumn. Morning sun, then gray sky and rain. The forecast says it will rain for days.

This time of year always takes me back. As a kid it felt like an emotional test and a report card. Many people in my family died around this season, so their death anniversaries fall close together. Giỗ means seeing relatives. And relatives mean questions. How is school. What is your job now. When will you get married. When will you have kids.

I used to dread it.

My generation is different from the one before. We do not make a big show. We do not love crowds. We just want a small meal to remember the people who are gone. Quiet, honest, enough.

But sometimes I feel a strange emptiness. Not sadness exactly. More like a missing voice. The ones who used to ask about my life are slowly gone. The aunts and uncles who pushed me with their questions, they are not here anymore.

That is when it hits me. We are becoming the older generation now. The people above us have passed on, one by one. One day we will be the ones at the table, and no one will ask us anything.

Maybe then I will miss the questions most.