The Last Surviving Child: A Memoir

By Thuy Rocco

The Last Surviving Child is a collection of poems, drawings, and stories about a mother and daughter finding hope while surviving war, immigration, discrimination, sexual abuse, poverty, suicide, and culture clash.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543933130

Book preview

1

Surviving the Escape

What makes people desperate enough to leave everything behind, to gamble with their lives on a small fishing boat, and escape to a place that does not want them? The Vietnam War had no winners. When we lost our country, we lost our culture, our freedom, and our voice. We abandoned everything we knew and risked our lives to escape to a new world in the hope that we could regain our freedom.

7 Journeys

Do you want to buy some fish? asked the scout. If you do, follow the man with the red-ribboned straw hat. My mom gave the scout four gold sticks (now worth about $2000). She met the man with the straw hat, who whispered, If you want to buy fish, meet me at the north beach in two nights, and there will be a boat waiting for you. Two nights later, my mom carried me and a small bag of personal items to the north beach, but she suddenly heard the voices of communist soldiers who were guarding the beach area. She ducked under a bush and a torrential rainfall started. We hid in about a foot of mud until the voices faded. About four hours later, my mom heard a small ferry boat engine coming to shore. A man with a flashlight walked up onto the beach. My mom looked carefully and recognized the scout’s face. She picked me up and ran toward him.

Do you still want to buy some fish?

My mom said yes.

Well, you have to pay.

Confused and angry, my mom shouted, I already paid the price!

The scout responded, If you don’t pay, I will report you.

My mom pleaded with him. She lifted part of her shirt to reveal a purse taped to her body. The scout snatched the whole purse and started shouting, Guard, guards!

Suddenly a whole fleet of communist soldiers appeared in the water.

They are trying to bribe me to escape! shouted the scout.

The soldiers immediately pushed my mom onto the ground and tied her hands with a rope. You are under arrest for being a traitor and for illegally leaving the homeland! said the soldier while he pushed her face into the sharp beach rocks.

My mom cried desperately, Please don’t hurt my baby!

Another soldier grabbed me and said to the other soldier, Take them to prison.

We were the lucky ones. We did not get raped or shot because the soldiers that night decided to have mercy on a mother and her daughter.

We tried seven times to escape from Vietnam. Like every other Vietnamese Boatperson, we were conned, robbed, blackmailed, and imprisoned. We faced death.

Prison

Trying to escape again…? Aren’t you afraid to die? asked the captain.

This was the sixth time our faces appeared in that prison, the size of a meat locker and stinking of the piss and feces rotting under our feet. The hunger and thirst from days of running had taken a toll on my mom. As she breastfed me in prison, she fainted. The captain told the guards to unlock the doors. He brought in some water and two rice buns.

The captain was my aunt’s childhood friend, who happened to also be in love with her, so he was lenient with our sentence. We should have been in front of the firing squad, but the captain helped us. He gave us food, and he let us go free each time. It’s time to give up, he said. Think about your baby.

My mom nodded in agreement; her heart and soul were already gone. Why keep trying?

Lives Lost

No one wins in war, especially when the face of the enemy is your own people—a neighbor, a friend, a relative. Even though the Vietnam War had ended, it continued to take many lives. Since my family worked very closely with the American army, we were identified by the Communists as traitors. After the fall of Saigon, my family quickly prepared to flee the country.

Escape would mean leaving everything behind, everything, and facing heavily guarded torrential seas, starvation, pirates, and death. My father took the first treacherous trip with my three brothers, my sister, and my aunt. At the time my mom was pregnant with me, so she was forced to stay behind. Only a few weeks later, the news arrived that the makeshift fishing boat that carried my family had capsized in a storm. That day the sea took twenty-three lives, including my family whom I had never seen or known. After losing her husband, her daughter, her three sons, and her sister, Vietnam was no longer my mom’s home; she had lost her country, her family, and her everything. There was only me left.

In memory of

When I asked my mom why God had taken away my father, brothers, and sister, she replied, God takes good people early. Some good people finish their journey early, and some good people must be here for life to continue.

When a flower bud falls from the branch before it blooms, it sacrifices its beauty and its life so the tree can survive.

Trinh (my dad): One rainy afternoon, my dad and a few of his military colleagues were drinking coffee at a café, and they saw an old man pulling a giant crate of water with his oxen. The wheels of the cart sank into the mud. Then a young lady ran out and tried to lift up the wheel. When the wheel finally broke free, the mud splattered on her face and clothes. All the men laughed except for my father. He told the men, She is going to be my wife. My dad got up, ran to the woman, and offered her his handkerchief. The old man was my grandfather and the lady my mom.

My mom tells me that my dad had the most gentle soul. If there was only one broom left in the house, he would give it away to whoever needed it. I used to scream at him for those kinds of things.

A son of a wealthy family, he always wore a fancy suit and tie. He was afraid of leeches. His children would swarm all over him every time he came home from work. He could never discipline my brothers or sister, and if he did, he would just spank them with a small comb. My mom would often ask him if he was spanking mosquitos because that comb could only hurt mosquitos.

My dad did not know how to cook rice. After my mom had given birth to my sister, she was bedridden. Even though they had cooks and maids, my dad personally cooked some rice for my mom. My mom took one bite of the burnt rice and threw the bowl to the ground.

She tells me how much she regrets being so mean