Hello dear readers.
May this find 2025 has started out peace-filled and generously kind to you, and for you!
And that life is visiting through daily experiences countless reasons to be thankful.
As these turkeys are offering on a particular wintery day.
As I talk with you from inside a warm home, I am thankful.
As I talk with you about to enjoy a delicious homemade soup, I am thankful.
As I glance over at three loves of my life, I am oh so very thankful.
As I think of how fortunate I am that you join me every other week, and that together we are in curious anticipation how The Creases Now Speak will continue to unfold, I am thankful.
Overflowing blessings wished to all of you as 2025 continues to unfold.
Namaste
-Christine
The Creases Now Speak – Mỹ
It was a couple of days after Mỹ wrote the letter for Edward when her mom Linh told her it was time for Mỹ to give it to him. For a brief moment Mỹ felt ashamed knowing she had not written the letter the way Linh had asked her to, but then Mỹ remembered her father’s words and she knew she had choosen well.
She couldn’t ask Edward to take her with him to the United States, leaving her mom alone in a war-torn country.
Nor could Mỹ add any more pain to Edward’s family. Mỹ didn’t speak English, but she understood enough words and she could read faces. She knew how eyes communicated grief. She had been looking into her mom’s – and into a mirror at her own – since her father was killed at the start of the war. Even before Edward showed her a picture of his brother who had also been killed in action, Mỹ knew Edward had experienced significant loss.
Mỹ also recognized the face of fear. She could feel it in Edward’s hesitancy around her. She could see how it wiped Edward’s smile away when he pointed to the picture of his father. She experienced it when Edward leaned towards her in what she thought would be his kiss only to have him quickly turn away as he muttered “I can’t.” When she placed her right hand on top of his left hand, he looked at her, looked down at the picture of his father, looked back at Mỹ and with eyes full of both fear and sorrow, and through a choked-up voice said, “If only.” She barely heard him as he looked down while she fought not to choose reaching for the tear rolling down his cheek, “you weren’t Vietnamese.”
Mỹ pulled her hand away knowing what Edward was not telling her. His family would never approve of him helping her and her mom; his choice was pleasing his father. She would not be angry nor sad. She could not judge someone for choosing a parent over any other choice.
Mỹ’s mom had instructed her to ask Edward to take both of them with him to the states when he returned home and help them arrive safely to her Uncle Hien. Linh said to mention she had a small savings, and though it wasn’t much, it would be his to help with the expenses.
What her mom didn’t know is Mỹ had overheard her telling Aunt Cà she would find a way to let Edward know she wouldn’t be making the trip with Mỹ and Edward. For Mỹ, the only choice was to stay with her mom and not have shame or guilt also find residence in Edward’s eyes when he would be compelled to say “no” to the request. His soul was already carrying enough burden.
Though Mỹ knew her eyes would always try to conceal her own shame at having disobeyed her mom, especially each time she allowed herself to recall her mom’s face when Edward didn’t come to the coffee shop anymore after she gave him the letter, Mỹ knew she could not bare to carry a heart full of grief if she left Linh in Vietnam.
Mỹ handed him the note four days after their near kiss. It was the first time she had seen him since then. He had struggled to look up at her when she brought him his coffee. When she brought him his bill, she also left her letter. She had gone into the kitchen to retrieve an order for another customer and when she returned, Edward was gone. In place of the letter was money for his coffee. That was the last trace of Edward Mỹ had. That, and her memory of him.
Even when Mỹ heard her mom crying herself to sleep for several nights after it was obvious Edward was no longer in-country. Even when her mom began moving through each day with despairing eyes, their nightly nine-minute ritual ceased because Linh no longer held a hopeful spirit. Even as Mỹ held her dying mother’s hand as Linh prepared to take her final breaths and leave this Earthly plane, saying to Mỹ Con xinh đẹp của Mẹ, đó luôn là con. My beautiful child, it has always been you.
“Every day since you were born, I have cried, not wanting the day to come when I would need to let you go.”
“I am sorry my beautiful child, please forgive me. For it is only now that I see when I lost half of my heart, I lived my greatest fear as my reality that I was destined to lose my whole heart. Fate wished to be kind to me instead, and I was not able to see.”
My beautiful. Until this last breath, you, I love.”
Even when Mỹ conceived a child who would make her a mother for the first time from the body of a man who did not have Mỹ ‘s permission to enter hers.
Through all of her grief, sorrow, and shame, Mỹ always knew she chose well staying in Vietnam.