Echoes Of Victor

Dear Vic, It’s only been two weeks into our four-week holiday in Vietnam, yet I already find myself missing home. Not just the place but the routines. The structure. The predictable rhythm of days that once felt ordinary and now feel strangely comforting. I even miss the endless paperwork - the documents still waiting for my signature, the practical tasks tied to sorting through your house, and the slow, careful act of packing away pieces of a life we once shared. Those tasks ground me. They remind me that what we had was real. When you passed, part of me shut down. A quiet, stubborn part that refuses to move on... even now. It’s been seven months, and letting go still feels impossible. Some days, it feels like moving forward would mean leaving you behind, and I’m not ready for that. At the same time, another part of me keeps going for Kenzo. That part shows up every day.. keeping him active, curious, discovering new places, new people, new moments of joy. I watch him laugh on ride...

Dear Vic, Today, I brought you home - to our family’s ancestral altar, where we honour those who came before us, and those who are no longer here in body, but never absent in spirit. It felt important to place you here. Not as a guest. Not as a memory tucked away. But as family. I wanted you to be part of this space - the quiet centre of our family home in Mỹ Tho, so that whenever Kenzo returns here, he knows you are still with us. That you belong. That you have a place not just in stories, but in ritual, in presence, in continuity. This altar holds generations. Names, faces, lives that shaped who we are - even if Kenzo never met them. And now, you stand among them. A father. A link. A thread that connects past to future. I know our path wasn’t simple. I know there were years when we lived separate lives, when distance (emotional and physical) sat between us. But none of that erases what matters most. You are Kenzo’s father. You are part of his beginning. And you are part o...