The Last Surviving Child

by Thuy Rocco

  When I came home from school, the deer was hung up in a tree at our house (yes, in the inner city). My mom gutted it while everyone else was throwing up from the smell. All of our neighbors looked at us judgmentally and hastily ran away.

  When I asked my mom how she got the deer, with great pride, she told me every single detail of the story. I laughed so hard, I was crying. She did, too. She said, “I can’t turn down free food.” This was at a time when my mom had her own business and we were no longer at poverty level. Her mind is always surviving, always trying to find free things in order to survive.

  A couple of days later, I was chewing on delicious deer jerky from my mom’s roadkill. We still have the deer skull with antlers as a coat rack, hanging in my mom’s bedroom.

  3 Vacations

  We didn’t really go on vacations growing up. My mom said it was a waste of money and that she could never relax anyway.

  One fond childhood memory of a vacation-like experience is when my family had a picnic in the park. My mom brought food and a blanket, and the kids played on the playground. That was one of the few times I played on the playground with my parents there. It was a rare occasion.

  My second memory was a trip to Atlanta. We went to all the oriental markets and bought Vietnamese groceries, food, and seafood to bring back to Nashville. We left at 6:00 a.m. and came back the same day because my parents had to work the next day. All the children, food, and cargo was crammed in the back of the truck. I remember holding on to bags of banh mi (a Vietnamese sandwich) while rolling around in the bed of the truck. That might not sound like fun, but it was a time when my whole family went somewhere together.

  The final trips I remember are fishing trips. My mom fished with pieces of chicken liver to catch large catfish. She was an excellent fisherwoman and always caught a giant bucket of fish. She used to have to hook my worm because of a phobia I had with worms and maggots. Fishing was the only time I saw my mom relax, smile, and appear as though she was enjoying life.

  Being Catholic

  My mom went to church every day unless she was deathly sick (she has severe asthma) or if there was an ice storm. In May 2010, Nashville had a hundred-year flood and my mom was on her way to church. She lost her car in that flood, but not her life. She told me that she had to make it to her rosary group, even through the flood.

  At times, my mom used religion to control me. She reminded me, “Thuy, eat all of your rice. Any rice that you leave behind is a maggot that you will have to eat in purgatory.” I got maggot phobia from my mom.

  Anytime I got in trouble, I would have to pray the rosary: five hundred Hail Marys, two hundred Our Fathers, one hundred Glory Bes. I would have to kneel in a corner or outside on the concrete holding the rosary in one hand. I had to say it loud enough so my mom could hear it, even if she was in the house.

  When I bought my house, my mom made sure to stop by to bless the house with holy water. She brought Jesus and Mary statues to set up a shrine. She still calls me every Sunday to see if I went to Mass.

  My mom survived because of her faith and her hope that in the next life she would see her family again.

  Collision Course

  At the age of sixteen, I could finally drive and not have to suffer my mom’s erratic driving skills. She doesn’t use the signals (she told me she can’t multitask in the car); when she brakes, your face hits the dashboard even with your seatbelt on; and she double parks.

  I had a white 1991 Toyota Corolla passed down from my brother. I remember one morning, before taking my mom to the doctor (I always accompanied my mom to the doctor), turning on the engine, but it didn’t start. I turned the key again and finally it started. There was a bunch of bird poop on the windshield because my car was parked under the giant magnolia tree in our front yard. I pushed the button for the windshield sprayer to clean, but nothing came out. I thought to myself how much bad luck I was having that morning.

  My mom came through the front door, carrying a bowl of rice (she always eats on the run). She got in. Normally we had an argument about why she should put her seatbelt on, but that day she said her chest hurt, she had asthma, and the doctor was not far away. For some reason, I decided not to push her about the seatbelt.

  It was a beautiful sunny day with clear blue skies. I usually went the back way through an old neighborhood to the doctor, but for some reason I made a turn that made me go on a main road. I was on autopilot. I turned to my mom and said, “Sorry, I forgot to go the other way.” As I drove through a green light, I heard my mom scream in Vietnamese, “Oh my Jesus!” At that moment, a black Cadillac turned into us, hitting us head on. I only blinked for one moment and saw death before me. Gasping for air, I turned to the passenger seat. A river of blood ran down the side of my mom’s forehead, and her eyes rolled, her body trembling from a seizure.

  I remember whispering, “Don’t leave me.” She barely whispered in Vietnamese, “I can’t breathe.” Her body convulsed and her eyes turned white. I was in shock but held her head as people ran toward us, telling us not to move. I shouted at them, “Help my mom! She can’t breathe! She can’t breathe!” Then I saw a priest coming toward me, and I thought this was either a dream or maybe we were dead. I blacked out.

  When I woke up, I was in an ambulance with the guy that hit us. I cursed him and asked him why he was driving like that. I was crying hysterically at that point and the EMT was trying to calm me down. Thank goodness I was tied down with a neck brace or I would’ve probably beaten that guy.

  I didn’t see my mom for three days. She was in a coma. I had a concussion, bruised forehead from hitting the wheel, a damaged spine, and a seatbelt burn across my chest.

  When I saw my mom for the first time after the accident, I couldn’t recognize her. There were tubes, machines, and bandages all over her. She had thirteen rib fractures, and both lungs had collapsed so she was connected to two ventilators. Her face was completely covered with bandages and staples because her head had gone through the windshield.

  The police told us that the Cadillac was turning left and hit a van, swerved into oncoming traffic and hit us.

  I told my mom that it was my fault for not making her put her seatbelt on; I told her it should’ve been me. All she could move was her one index finger. She waggled it no. A few weeks later, she was able to talk and whispered to me, “I took all the pain. I took it all, so you could be okay and safe.” She smiled while I cried and held her hand. It took a year for my mom to fully recover, and the first thing she did was sweep the house.

  This experience changed the course of our relationship. I was no longer angry at her for all my childhood horrors. I thought I had lost her; I thought I would be all alone in this world. I finally understood just a tiny bit how my mom felt when she lost her family. I finally understood and felt her deep sacrifices.

  I didn’t drive for about six months because of my PTSD. My mom told me I should try to overcome my fears because the accident hadn’t been my fault. Because of the enormous medical bills, we only received a small amount from the other driver’s insurance. After receiving that money, my mom said she had a surprise for me in the driveway. She had bought a used 1996 gold Nissan Altima for me. She told me, “You have to drive me to the doctor.” I was so shocked. It took a couple of weeks, but I finally drove my mom to the appointment that she missed.

  AMERICA

  English.

  is the only word I learned abandoned in a portable with three other kids who spoke a language without me

  Alone.

  with my ABC workbook to copy mute words over and over again

  Outside.

  kids play house and hopscotch and I look at the blisters on my fingers and think

  I hate this place

  Uneducated

  My mom barely finished grade school in Vietnam before her parents took her out to work and help the family. In Vietnam you had to pay to go to school, and her family was too poor to send her to secondary school. My mom was never book smart
, but she was always witty and had a high business acumen. She started from nothing and used the wages she earned from the flea market, housekeeping, and renting out a room to open two nail salons. She bought several rental properties as well.

  My mom always had good financial sense; she paid for everything with cash and always saved every single penny. She is one of the smartest women I know.

  However, she also has a tendency to believe in every conspiracy theory and superstition that exists in this world. If her left eye twitched, she said she was going to lose money. If a cat dared to step in her yard, she would chase it away because of bad luck. She would read fortunes and tell me how I was going to get into bad car accidents and financial trouble, which sometimes came true.

  Everything caused cancer: she would call me every day in college to tell me not to highlight my hair, not to eat instant ramen, not to go out in the cold, not to sleep in a certain position because it was bad luck and would cause cancer.

  My grandma was a village herbal medicine doctor, so my mom always had home remedies for any common illness. I had hypersensitive skin that puffed up anytime something scratched it. She would buy whole coconuts and burn them in a fire in the backyard to make coconut ashes to put on my skin. It stopped my itching and hives. Our neighbors thought she was burning animal heads. Once my youngest brother fell off a hammock, and she put dried tobacco on his head to stop the bleeding, and it did. If I was running a fever, she would make an herbal hot pot of lemongrass, ginger, and Chinese herbal roots. I would cover myself with a blanket and use the hot pot to steam and sweat out all the illness. It usually worked. The best home remedy was the tiger balm. This little green elixir was used for everything. If your nose was stuffy, you would put a little on your nose. It would burn like hell, but your nose would clear up. If you had the flu, my mom would put some tiger balm on your back and scrape it with a quarter until red streaks appeared. That let all the bad blood escape. To this day, my mom is always making some magic elixir, and you know what? They usually work.

  Chapter 6

  Surviving Me

  My past has helped me grow as a person, and it has also prepared me for today and tomorrow.

  I am not sure why I am here in this place, but I know I will uncover small clues along the journey of life. I do feel that I have a purpose in life. In my search for answers and for happiness, I do believe that what I do makes my soul. I am alive because my mother made so many sacrifices so I could have freedom; I am alive because my friends give me their darkest stories so I can understand and learn; I am alive because someone was compassionate; I am alive because of the smiles, hugs, and embraces of human warmth.

  I came to the United States alienated and hopeless. I lost myself with the death of my family. My fear of being different, of being the outsider, of failing, of being unloved, of being alone, and of so many other things gave me reasons to be detached. I felt like I had a right to have low self-esteem and to be unhappy, because people gave me those fears. Despite all the darkness I faced and felt, I found people who shared their hope with me. I could live inside the hope that they gave me. I look within myself and others in order to complete myself.

  I found that my fight for love kept me alive in this world, and it still does.

  Why am I Alive

  Why am I alive? This is a question I’ve been asking since I was little. I often wished I was on that sunken boat with my dad, brothers, and sister. I convinced myself that I would be a lot happier living together with them whether they were in purgatory or heaven. As the years went by, my parents’ bickering and manipulation, all the bullying, the responsibilities, the sexual abuse overshadowed my will to live. By the age of eight, before I even learned the word suicide I had scenarios planned out in my head. I watched movies where people would get electrocuted in the bathtub with a hair dryer or hang themselves. My family never had a hair dryer, but many of my friends did. I could easily have asked to borrow one, but I thought that electrocution was such a painful death. I could never hang myself either because suffocating to death seemed agonizing. If I knew about sleeping pills then, I would probably not be here today.

  So what kept me from pulling the trigger? It came down to one single reason: I didn’t want to leave my mom alone. As much trouble and pain as she caused me, I thought we had both lost so much. If she lost me, I thought that she would give up, too. I also believed my dead family would be so sad, because I felt that they gave up their lives in order for me to survive. I would repeat to myself: my mom risked her life to save mine and my family died saving me.

  This was always the struggle. The weight of my suicidal thoughts grew as I grew. Sometimes I would be so close to ending my life, and no one would know, no one would ask. Only I could pull myself together.

  I was just a child then. Depression is always a fight, no matter where you are in life.

  Hit the Nail

  I stepped on a nail while watering our garden. I was carrying a five-gallon bucket filled with water—an old paint bucket that we found in the alley—and a water can made out of a coffee tin. We couldn’t even afford a garden hose. The nail went through my right foot.

  I froze in pain, looking down at the blood pouring out. I tried to lift my foot up but it was still attached to the nail with the wood plank. My younger brother who was playing outside looked down at my foot and he started crying. I started crying. I knew I was not dying, but I didn’t know what to do. I was stuck.

  My mom came out the back door running and yelling. She grabbed my foot and pulled the nail out. My stepdad and stepbrother carried me to the doorstep. My mom immediately poured a bottle of peroxide on my foot, and a pond of foam formed. My mom wrapped some fabric around it, but it was still bleeding. My family carried me to the van and rushed to the doctor’s office. They had to hold me down to put a tetanus shot into my foot. I left with a bandaged foot and crutches. I came home to see my mom with a hammer, hitting at all the garden planks and cursing at the nail that pierced my foot. I smiled.

  The next day at school, my best friend Tu saw me limping in with crutches. She ran and took my fifty-pound backpack. She told me she could meet me after each class and help me up the stairs with all my books. There were no elevators, so I had to hop up the stairs to class. But right behind me was a true friend, a true light in my darkness.

  My friend Tu, whose name means brightness, was always there for me in high school. We played Vietnamese card games, talked about the Chinese drama and sagas, and listened to all the cheesy Asian songs. I looked at that bloodied nail and saw all the pain, but I also saw all the people who loved me and took care of me.

  Mrs. Robinson

  I was good at school because it was an escape from my home and my family. I loved learning, even when kids made fun of me and even when my teachers were bad. There were a few teachers who made my school life extraordinary, loved their students, and did everything to light our knowledge. One particular teacher, Mrs. Robinson from middle school, changed the course of my life. I always thought my fate was to be a person that everyone stepped on, but she saw something in me and nourished my talents.

  Mrs. Robinson always challenged me to think empathetically. I was generally shy and sometimes I felt my answers in school were wrong, but in Mrs. Robinson’s class, I felt safe and could say anything on my mind.

  Mrs. Robinson would sneak me high school books to read. I read The Grapes of Wrath, The Jungle, and the Count of Monte Cristo. I thought my life was bad, but these books showed me how people can survive almost any situation.

  One day she had an announcement: a student with AIDS was joining our class. She asked us, “How will you welcome her? How will you treat her?” I remember raising my hand and saying, “I would treat her like a friend, like a fellow human being.” Then Mrs. Robinson asked, “Would you sit next to her? Would you eat with her? Would you hug her?”

  We had just recently finished a chapter on transmitted diseases. Some students said yes, but others stayed silent. I had never tho
ught about such a situation. I became very empathetic. I researched AIDS deeply to understand and learn, so I could treat people right.

  Mrs. Robinson took us on field trips. I saw my first broadway play: West Side Story. My first ice-skating trip was with her. My first trip outside of Nashville was to Washington DC. She helped secure funds to help kids like me go. She made me captain of the Academic Olympics, a trivia team that competes with other schools. She helped me get into student council. Everything I thought I could never do, she gave me the push. She gave me my voice and my stage.

  WHAT ARE YOU?

  They ask me if I was Japanese,

  I say yes.

  They ask me if I was Chinese,

  I say yes.

  They ask me if I was Korean,

  I say yes.

  The truth is I am Vietnamese.

  I lied.

  Why do they ask me such questions?

  I hear.

  They can’t see, so they ask me.

  Blood

  My older stepbrother is Cinderella. He suffered immense emotional and physical abuse from my mom. No one protected him. My mom made us enemies. I never understood completely, but I knew it was simply because of blood and because he still had all his family in Vietnam: his real mom, sisters, and brothers. I knew he suffered everything I went through plus everything that my mom did to him. As I grew older, I defended him more often. I was always so afraid of my mom, but the few times I had the courage, I would speak up for my stepbrother. It always ended badly, either with a spanking or my mom disowning me for a while. But what is remarkable is that my stepbrother was always so kindhearted.