Where Memory Lingers

As a family of six, everyone had a seat at the dinner table.

My three older sisters filled the right side, while my parents and I sat on the left. I always took the end seat, and to my left, my Bố (dad). He was my left-hand man — the one who scooped rice from the cooker into everyone’s bowls, who fed me bits of history between bites, and who relished in teaching me about whatever he had just learned: world affairs, Vietnamese idioms, or stock market patterns.

Over time, his seat became more than just a place at the table. It became a place of presence. Of steadiness. Of love, shown in servings and stories.

That seat has been empty ever since my Bố (father) passed away five years ago.

Although my family and I have tried numerous re-configurations of our seating, it’s never quite the same. There are still moments when I glance toward it, expecting to hear his voice, how he would burst out singing “I’m So Excited” by The Pointer Sisters and the jokes he made even when no one else was laughing yet. But what once was filled with his warmth now holds only silence. In many ways, this is where grief began, in the space left behind.

At first, I thought memory would be enough.

But over the years, the memories began to slip. His voice grew softer in my head. His face became more blurred at the edges. And alongside that fading, I realized how much I never asked him. How much I never knew about his life.

My father had a unique journey from Vietnam. He studied abroad in Germany, a detour that became his path to safety before immigrating to the U.S. He was gifted in languages, picking up German pretty quickly and got a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Yet beyond the surface facts I knew of his story there was so much left unsaid. 

How did he feel when he left his family all by himself? What did he miss most being so far away? How did he find the courage to keep living in two different lands, Germany and then the United States, where even the air felt foreign?

I never asked. I thought I would have time.

This year, fifty years after the Fall of Saigon, these questions feel heavier. And they are not just mine alone. They are part of a larger inheritance shared by many Vietnamese Americans. We are navigating a dual culture, trying to honor the past while also building something new. We are shouldering histories we did not witness, and sometimes we miss how fragile our histories are — tied not to books, but to the living memories of our parents, our elders, our communities.

Last October for my dad’s anniversary, I produced a video. I channeled my grief and memories of Bố into the image of a black bird, a quiet witness who followed me through college, showing up during busy days of school, work, and theater.

Even now, the black bird still visits me. He comes during my quiet, daily rituals: folding laundry, listening to my “moody” music, walking alone through the streets around my childhood home. Grief, I’ve learned, doesn’t always shout. Sometimes it hums in the background, soft but steady.

Bố is no longer here to tell his story. But perhaps remembering him doesn’t mean recovering every lost detail. Perhaps it means recognizing the small ways he remains: in my music, my tenderness, my resolve to keep learning Vietnamese.

Grief is not simply the absence of someone. It’s love transformed into new forms: into remembrance, into art, into the quiet decision to keep going, even when the road feels lonely. 

When the black bird visits, I stop and let him stay. When he leaves, I carry on. Heart a bit heavier and a bit fuller.

I am still learning how to live with loss. To carry it with grace, instead of letting it harden into regret. 

And I share this story not because it is rare, but because it is not. So many of us, in the Vietnamese diaspora and beyond, are grappling with the same ache: the desire to hold onto our loved ones, even as time gently, inevitably, asks us to let go.

This year, and every year, I remember my father. I honor the silences, the missing pieces.

And I choose to believe that where memory lingers, so too does love.

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Benjamin Hoàng Nguyễn is the Social Media Manager of Vietnamese Boat People. He has a podcast with his 3 older sisters called Growing Up Nguyen, a collection of stories about growing up Vietnamese American in the Bay Area. Beyond podcasting, Ben has discovered a passion for theatrical and commercial acting as well as modeling.

Connect with Ben on Instagram or LinkedIn.