Today is the seventh day since grandma passed. If I were asked what I feel in these days, for me it is peace and wholeness.
This piece belongs to a series of 100 posts written in memory of Thom's grandmother, published on her Facebook.
Today is the seventh day since grandma passed. If I were asked what I feel in these days, for me it is peace and wholeness. From the day grandma took a turn for the worse to the day she left us was more than 10 days, and in those days, though she came close to death twice, with the help of the doctor, Khiêm, who saved her life 4 times, grandma came back to health, read Truyện Kiều, did her sums and ate sweet potato with the people she loved most! Thank you, grandma, for letting us stay beside you a while longer. There is nothing I regret: over these past years I chose my work for the thing I wanted most of all, and when grandma fell ill, and before she passed, I was there with her.
In 2021, out of fear that a dangerous year was coming for grandma, I read and watched a great deal about death. What I liked most was probably the book Điểm đến cuộc đời (The Destination of a Life), the interviews Đặng Hoàng Giang gave about death, and the books of Thích Nhất Hạnh. That preparation has truly been worth it, right up to today.
One of the most important pieces I have ever read about mindfulness, and about how to treasure every minute beside the people we love, is a part of the book “Phép lạ của sự tỉnh thức” (The Miracle of Mindfulness) by Thích Nhất Hạnh: the chapter “Ba câu trả lời màu nhiệm” (The Three Wondrous Answers) — a story told by the writer Lev Tolstoy.
Thích Nhất Hạnh writes:
“Lev Tolstoy’s story is like a story from the Buddhist scriptures, and it is in no way less than a scripture. Tolstoy is a Bodhisattva in that story. This great writer saw the meaning of life and the way to live it. How are we to live the present moment, to live alongside the people we meet every day, to do at once the thing that can lessen their suffering and add to their happiness — how? The answer is that we must practise mindfulness.”
The three questions are:
To read more, do please go on at this link. For myself, to read faster, I copy the link into the Google app and use the read-aloud mode (this mode is only on Google for iPhone and on iOS). With this feature I save so very much time reading the things that matter. Do give it a try.
Those two weeks in their house were the loveliest thing I had in Athens.
The only thing I want to do with them: read together.
She told me that only that English video really worked, and that she has been able to go back to work.