My family is really close. It might be because of the war that my mom and her siblings had to endure, or maybe because that’s just how they grew up. Either way, I’m thankful for it. Or, at least, I thought I was. In Cambodian, all aunts and uncles older than your parents are called “Oum.” All aunts younger than your parents are called “Ming,” while all younger uncles are called “Pou.” Older relatives in your generation are called “Bong,” while all younger ones are called “Oun.” Sometimes they’re not even relatives, but it’s hard to know because the community is so close. If you’re especially close to someone, for example, a sibling, a lot of the time we only use one or the other, the title or the name. The family I’m closest
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Maybe we hoped he wouldn’t go through with it.
The entire family’s out searching for my cousin, and I would be too, but it’s championships. There’s no excuse for skipping championships.
The entire time, though, I’m thinking about everything I remember, and everything I or regret. I regret not going to that last family dinner when he was still with us, I remember the last time I saw him, he brought home leftover mac and cheese from work for Juliann and me. I think about all the times I could have done something that might have made him happier, or all the times when he talked about how he was supposed to die young.
I come home that day and we’re having a sort of party. Just my family and Juliann’s and Oum Bopha, but still a party. Juliann, my sister, and I are upstairs in my sister’s room and we hear the doorbell. We start to wander downstairs, wondering who would visit at 12 AM, and all the parents shoo us back upstairs, but not before we see the police enter.
Maybe an hour later, Juliann decides to go downstairs to check on what’s happening. When she doesn’t come back, my sister and I start to worry. What could have …show more content…
There needs to be a funeral, and Ming Pov wants it in a week. That’s a week to send out the invitations and plan everything. But my mom steps up and takes it on. We can do it, if it means making this easier on her, we can do anything.
So we do. We plan everything out, send all the invitations, ask for speakers and soon it’s the day of the funeral.
I hadn’t cried since that night we found out, but I walk into that room and it settles in that he’s actually gone. There’s a picture on the screen of his smiling face and it’s closed casket because he wants us to remember him as he was. As the guy who was always smiling and joking around.
And then I take my seat with my sister, next to our cousins, and I’m crying. We’re in the second row, the first being reserved for Juliann and her parents, as well as the elderly. My sister and I finally get our emotions under control when the ceremony starts.
People go up there, one by one, and start talking about what they miss, or what they will miss. And some of them I don’t know, but I know they mattered to him. Someone walks up just to talk about how his sneeze was so obnoxious and so loud that it never failed to make people laugh. Someone walks up to talk about how they’ll miss coming back and knowing he’d have some new music for them. Someone walks up to talk about how they’ll miss trying all the new foods, and how they know they’ll miss him every time they ete something he’d really
Maybe we hoped he wouldn’t go through with it.
The entire family’s out searching for my cousin, and I would be too, but it’s championships. There’s no excuse for skipping championships.
The entire time, though, I’m thinking about everything I remember, and everything I or regret. I regret not going to that last family dinner when he was still with us, I remember the last time I saw him, he brought home leftover mac and cheese from work for Juliann and me. I think about all the times I could have done something that might have made him happier, or all the times when he talked about how he was supposed to die young.
I come home that day and we’re having a sort of party. Just my family and Juliann’s and Oum Bopha, but still a party. Juliann, my sister, and I are upstairs in my sister’s room and we hear the doorbell. We start to wander downstairs, wondering who would visit at 12 AM, and all the parents shoo us back upstairs, but not before we see the police enter.
Maybe an hour later, Juliann decides to go downstairs to check on what’s happening. When she doesn’t come back, my sister and I start to worry. What could have …show more content…
There needs to be a funeral, and Ming Pov wants it in a week. That’s a week to send out the invitations and plan everything. But my mom steps up and takes it on. We can do it, if it means making this easier on her, we can do anything.
So we do. We plan everything out, send all the invitations, ask for speakers and soon it’s the day of the funeral.
I hadn’t cried since that night we found out, but I walk into that room and it settles in that he’s actually gone. There’s a picture on the screen of his smiling face and it’s closed casket because he wants us to remember him as he was. As the guy who was always smiling and joking around.
And then I take my seat with my sister, next to our cousins, and I’m crying. We’re in the second row, the first being reserved for Juliann and her parents, as well as the elderly. My sister and I finally get our emotions under control when the ceremony starts.
People go up there, one by one, and start talking about what they miss, or what they will miss. And some of them I don’t know, but I know they mattered to him. Someone walks up just to talk about how his sneeze was so obnoxious and so loud that it never failed to make people laugh. Someone walks up to talk about how they’ll miss coming back and knowing he’d have some new music for them. Someone walks up to talk about how they’ll miss trying all the new foods, and how they know they’ll miss him every time they ete something he’d really