Today is ba's day

Last night I had a strange dream. In the dream, I went back to Vĩnh Long to see ba and sat talking with him. Inside the dream I thought: this is odd — is it real or is it a dream? Ba is gone, isn't he? I remember how the funeral went, every detail clearly, don't I? Hmm, I can't be sure though — what if that was another dream? I have a lot of dreams about funerals — death, after all. So in the end what is real and what is false? Is the truth that ba is gone, or is it just a dream? I decided to choose that ba hasn't passed, and sat drinking tea talking about life with him.

Which dream isn't strange? Which life isn't full of strangeness?

Today is ba's day. Ten years ago, on this exact day, I was thinking about how I had never done anything especially meaningful for ba. Since I was in my tattoo phase back then, I decided right away to tattoo ba's name on the left side of my chest. Of course, that very day. It was my second tattoo. The first was the word "death".

Ten years later, ba passed away — a month ago. 22/5/2021. No matter how much I planned, even if I lived a hundred more lives I could not have calculated this: on the tenth anniversary of that tattoo, ba is gone. Who can predict the future? Don't try. I didn't plan it, and yet the coincidence landed this way. So I think: just do it, especially the things that come from the heart.