Dr. Jedidiah's Diary Episode #81: My father's heart left in the shadow from Saigon

Dr. Jedidiah’s Diary

Dr. Jedidiah is a psychiatrist who loves traveling, meeting new people, and exploring different cultures as a single father who lost his perky self for the last decade. During those hard years, he has met hundreds of, thousands of people from various walks of life around all over the world. Meeting new people and listening to their  ones through the formal encounter groups or being truly honest with himself. Here is Dr. Jedidiah’s monologue that has left him with some food for thoughts in life…. or a fodder to justify his own mistakes in the past.

 

Episode #81. My father’s heart left in the shadow from Saigon

I still vividly remember my father’s sad eyes whenever his painful memories in the Vietnamese war were rubbed in on the weekly night-outs with his veteran friends at their major hangout tavern. I’d often tag along with my dad to the gatherings, because he and his friends would always need an ardent listener to their war story, which was sad, mad, hopeless, absurd, and painful.

 

Dad and his buddies finished each other’s sentences when they saw the others getting choked up in tears, talking about how their Vietnamese friends in Saigon demised. Mr. Elsman, who is the closest friend to my dad often said “We were all waiting for the days when the endless tension of the war would soon be de-escalating and coming to an end.” Hours and hours of these war veterans’ conversations and reminiscence of the war always reached the point of boring and insipid. However, one part of my dad’s story in Vietnam never felt the same old. It was about the girl who stole my dad’s heart in Saigon. The girl named Linh was helping her father sell fruits at his small street vendor. Dad used to say to me “I was so into her smile. Her beautiful eyes and smile gave me a moment of joy during the never-ending war period when there seemed no hope at all. Her father was a Buddhist and had to secretly worship Buddha behind the curtain, because the then-leader of Saigon persecuted Buddhism. Linh told my dad that her brother Dung had secretly became a Viet Cong. When my dad came to learn that Linh’s father took his own life, he decided to be Linh’s protector and some day he would take her to the States after the war. It never happened. She was shot by Dung’s friend in reprisal for her relationship with a US soldier that was my dad. Since Linh’s tragic death, my dad’s life in Vietnam had become unbearably painful until he came back home to the States. Even after he met my mom at his local church, got married, and had a son who later became a psychiatrist, dad had always been living in the indelible nightmares. I felt ashamed of myself for not being able to help or save my own father and his war veteran friends from the quagmire of emotional crippling and high-functioning depression.

 

A few years before his passing, dad handed me a letter. The off-white colored paper was stained with his tears, and they’re still there like the longest shadow that engulfed his youth and twilight years as well.

 

Dear my son,

You are my pride. Well, even if you’ve never felt your dad’s love, I want you to know that you are always the best gift in my life.

Like I said a million times before, I used to carry the Ace of Spades stuck on my helmet in the war zone. I had been waiting for the moment all the time to use them to show my enemy was dead…. but each time I placed the Ace of Spades cards in dead VC’s bodies, my soul was also dead. When we were flying over the northern area to spray the agent orange, my mind was also suffocated and filled by the deadly toxin that killed the country where my loving woman belonged to.

Son, you often say that you could not help me find peace of mind, but that is not true. Your presence as my number one listener did save me each night I wanted to end my life. Just remember that I was not just a hopeless veteran suffering in the phantom of the Vietnam War. If I made you think I was always playing the victim, I’m sorry, son. I was just an incompetent soldier who felt deceived and contradicted by the absurdity of war. When I came back home, part of my heart was left behind in that country, and the rest of it has been here with me in the seemingly never-ending shadow.  

 

Love, Dad

 

 Wanna listen to John Lennon's "Imagine"?  (from Vhic Playlist on Youtube): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNnFFKv_NyI&ab_channel=VhicPlaylist

 

Expressions

    1.   to rub something in: to emphasize something or to harp on something

    2.   major hangout: a favorite place for spending time also : a place frequented for entertainment or for socializing

    3.   to tag along: to follow another's lead especially in going from one place to another    

    4.  to de-escalate: reduce the intensity of (a conflict or potentially violent situation)

    5.   insipid: lacking flavor/vigor/interest

    6.   Viet Cong: English Vietnamese Communists, the guerrilla force that, with the support of the North Vietnamese Army, fought against South Vietnam (late 1950s–1975) and the United States (early 1960s–1973)

    7.   indelible: that cannot be removed/erased/or washed away

    8.   quagmire: (figurative meaning) complex and hazardous situation

    9.   high-functioning depression: If other people cannot recognize that something is wrong, which is especially true with high functioning depression, these individuals struggling will have less natural support in their community. This can impact the intensity and severity of symptoms, making these individuals feel that they are alone in this journey.”

   10.  off-white (color): color that has oat warmth but with layers of smoky grays

   11.  to play the victim: When playing the victim, a person will refuse to take responsibility for the circumstance that they are in. Instead, they point the finger to make others feel guilty, or simply ignore their role in perpetuating the problem

*picture source:  https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/ptsds-long-reach