According to Vietnamese anthropologist Phạm Công Sơn (1996):

Death is not the end but is the final stage of one life to be transformed into another.

Two years ago I went to Việt Nam for a spell, to visit family while my paternal grandfather (ông nội) was still alive and ended up connecting with my paternal grandmother (bà nội). As my family and I were getting ready to leave for the states my paternal grandfather’s health made a turn for the worse and suddenly my father asked if I would be willing to stay behind to watch over my grandfather and keep everyone up-to-date in the states.

For a few minutes I was tempted… more than tempted really. However in the end I decided against it and went home, only for my grandfather’s health to deteriorate to the point that my parents and all my dad’s siblings flew back to Việt Nam to bury their father. I stayed home… wondering if perhaps I should have stayed in Việt Nam… I never got a chance to see the burial process, I was unaware of the traditions involved…

Over Labor Day weekend my father’s side of the family suffered a devastating loss… only two years after the passing of my ông nội (essentially the patriarch in the family)… The loss of the matriarch. This time I had a front seat view of the traditions since the timing was as such that within hours of setting foot in Sài Gòn my family and I would be saying goodbye to my bà nội.

Since this is my first time going through all the Vietnamese death rituals and traditions it is still kind of hard to describe a lot of what I just went though – being a first-generation in America I only know so much – so I scoured the internet for some thing that would go into enough detail of what I experienced and I could just add in my thoughts along the way… eventually I did.

At Ethonomed.com there is a very thorough article to goes step by step of what happened within that family and the rituals they have undergone and most of it is very accurate to what I have gone through.

Originally I was going to add photos to this to give an idea of some of the sights through my eyes, but on second thought those are very private photos and photos that I personally would not feel comfortable showing to a public audience. So instead the photos here are those of a similar nature that is a reflection of what I went through, but not exact. This is to protect the privacy of my family and relations not only stateside but in Việt Nam as well.
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