DEATH AND THE WIND FARM

I only went because my grandfather died.

The plan had been Europe—horseback riding in the Spanish countryside, savouring custard tarts in Porto, and castle hopping in Bavaria. I was in Seville, coming out of a flamenco show, when I received the news.

Since we’d immigrated to Toronto thirteen years ago, I’d only returned to Việt Nam sparingly. The last time, I spent three days in my hometown of Hà Nội. When we’d parted on the doorstep, my grandfather had tears in his eyes. Living half a world away, I knew to prepare for goodbyes that might be forever; but I got complacent. I truly thought I would see him again.

My early life weaving between continents meant that our relationship had been built on snippets, always wanting. I remembered him by how still he could sit on a bamboo mat, meditating for hours, and how sharp his eyes looked, right until the end. They took in every story around him with piercing clarity.

He had taught me to conjugate “être” in French. He had survived severe appendicitis, kidney failure, and years on dialysis. He had lived through a revolution and two wars. He had learned Portuguese in his fif- ties, just for fun. Even into his eighties, he leapt at every opportunity to travel or to recite his poetry. His love for his family was only rivalled by his love for our homeland.

I pieced his final chapter together while booking my emergency flight to Nội Bài Airport. It had ended in a sudden heart failure. Ten minutes of gasping quickly, slowly– and then he was gone.

I came back to my family to grieve, to open arms and my aunt’s simple words, “Welcome home. We’ve missed you.” That broke me.

In the afternoon light, I took walks with my grandmother, hand-in-hand under the shade of cherry trees, and I sat with her by the koi pond. Every morning and night, I lit incense on my grandfather’s altar. I watched the sky try desperately to be blue.

The cruelty of it all only struck me in the days following his funeral—that my sweet aunt, who had been the giver all her life, bore the burden of standing alone with him as he died; that my mother had been headed home anyway, on her way to Pearson Airport when the call came in.

“I was one day late,” she said. I held my mother, shaking. “He knew I was coming, and he didn’t wait for me.”

The days dragged as the house mourned, and when routine began to find its feet, I stood in a half-forgotten home with a month abruptly devoid of plans. Headed to the Mekong delta on a weeklong business trip, my aunt offered me the chance to tag along. I agreed, and we left on a Monday morning before dawn.

We were waiting in the lobby of a hotel in Cần Thơ when the tour agency called to say that every trip I’d booked for the week was cancelled. It was low season, not enough travellers; they apologized. I sat toying with the idea of making my way around alone, but certain points would be impossible to reach by bus, and the hastiness of the trip meant that I was wholly unprepared.

“I’ll take a day off,” my aunt said finally. “We can hire a car to see the neighbouring provinces. It would be a waste to miss.”

Thus, in the pitch black of five in the morning that Thursday, in the streets along the Cần Thơ river lined with waste, our car picked us up for our day trip south. My grogginess dissipated when I saw the sun rise over a foggy plain on a lonely road in Hậu Giang. We stopped the car to stare at the light clinging to the grass, the red, gold, and green of the field.

Contrary to the tour itinerary, our driver suggested we drive straight to Cà Mau in the morning to see the main attractions first—the mangrove forests, the speedboat tour, the southernmost tip of the country—and return for the lesser-known sights along the way back.

We didn’t arrive at the wind farm until sunset. Having done no research prior to coming, I had only heard of it from my aunt, who often worked in the area. She insisted it was not to be missed, despite not being the top attraction in Bạc Liêu. With 62 turbines at 80m high, the slender white windmills spanned far offshore in the clear gray sea. I stepped onto the dock, and the sky opened up before me—a perfect blue with ballooning white clouds. The breeze spun the vanes lazily, and we were alone.

The sun was as gold as when it had risen that morning, spilling over the marsh where newts squirmed in the mud. We watched as it burned red and began to dip. The clouds darkened, and the sky turned lavender and pink. Reflected in the ocean, the windmills stood tall amidst a watercolour painting.

I’d come home to mourn, and I expected to find nothing beyond—yet here was a scene to bring gods to their knees. I stood in awe watching the tinges of light stream across the landscape and marvelled at the plans that had to go wrong, the sorrow that had to be shared, and the coincidences that had to line up to bring me there and then.

With his six grandchildren in six different cities abroad, my grandfather had always wanted us to see the beauty of our roots and our home. He was a proud man, a loyal man. He’d lectured us about the resilience of our people, the strength of our history, and the richness of our country; we’d rolled our eyes, and then left to build new lives oceans away. I remembered in that moment that the heart failure that killed him had not been his first. The first had happened months before, mere hours after my youngest cousin left home for good.

“Cháu gái yêu quý,” was what he had always called me. Cherished granddaughter.

I stood at the edge of the sea that night and stared at the most beautiful sun sinking lower, lower—and then it was gone.