Death Wouldn’t Wait for the Reunion

GARDEN GROVE — Carrying only two small bags containing nothing but Asian medicines for their father’s cancer, Son and Dung Luu walked off their 20-hour flight from Vietnam on Wednesday into the tearful embrace of their mother, Anh Pham, and younger brother, Trung.

Thin and weary-looking, with the angular features of their father, the two brothers looked expectantly for him. “How is father?” Son Luu, 25, pressed during the 15-minute car ride from the airport. “How is he?”

The sudden sobs of 15-year-old Trung told him what his mother could not say. There would be no reunion: Nghia Luu had died two weeks ago of liver cancer.

Son and Dung, 30, were supposed to have arrived Dec. 17, part of a mercy mission arranged by a local Vietnamese pastor and U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer’s office. The U.S. Embassy had issued the visas, and the brothers had prepared to leave that day, but Vietnamese officials held them back at the last minute, demanding a $200 bribe, a year’s salary in Vietnam, they said.

It was money they didn’t have--and time Nghia Luu could not spare.

At their parents’ home, their faces contorting in pain, the two brothers clutched the bundles of medicine to their chests, weeping helplessly in front of the tiny Garden Grove apartment where their mother and younger brother live.

In the end, Nghia Luu simply could not wait, their mother told the brothers. Their father had watched for them from his bed at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Orange, hanging on until his body gave up Dec. 20, she said.

“That last day, he waited for them to come. He kept asking me, ‘Where is Son? He promised he would visit. Where is Dung?’ He kept his eyes wide open, looking for them,” said Anh, 50, a sweet-faced woman.

“If only they had come on the 17th, they would have talked to each other one last time,” Anh said, closing her eyes in pain.

A handsome man with sharp, boyish features, Luu, 57, was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer two months ago. His dying wish was to see the two sons he had left behind in Vietnam.

Luu, his wife and his youngest son had arrived in the U.S. in August 1996 under a program that brought over former members of the South Vietnamese military who had been sent to prison camps. An army lieutenant, Luu spent seven years in a camp in northern Vietnam.

After Luu got out of prison, Anh said, the family struggled to survive, scratching out a living as peddlers. With little chance to make money in rural Nha Trang in central Vietnam, there was virtually no hope for a better life.

They filed the paperwork to come to the U.S. in 1994, but the process took time and the occasional bribe, money the family didn’t have.

By the time the family was approved for travel, U.S. restrictions passed in 1996 banned children older than 20 from coming with their parents. The Luus were forced to leave three children behind: Dung, Son and a married daughter, Dai, 26. Another daughter died three years ago.

Arriving in this country without money or friends, the family turned to the Rev. Bao Xuan Nguyen of the Saigon Reformed Presbyterian Church in Westminster for help.

Nguyen let the Luus stay in his house for three months before they found a home in Garden Grove--a two-bedroom apartment they shared with another family. They have been living on welfare ever since.

The elder Luu had been in good health until about two months ago. Then, all of a sudden, his face swelled. Ten days later, his left foot swelled so badly he couldn’t drive.

“That’s when he suspected something very bad,” Anh said. “We went to the doctor and he said he only had three months left.”

Her husband immediately asked to see his sons. Coincidentally, a change in the law now allowed adult children into the U.S.

The couple again turned to Pastor Nguyen for assistance, and he got Boxer’s office involved. By the time a letter from the senator was sent to the American Embassy in Hanoi on Dec. 12, doctors said Luu had 10 days to live.

Plans were made for the two sons to arrive the evening of Dec. 17. News that his children were coming gave the rapidly weakening Luu added strength that day, Nguyen recalled.

“It seemed he got better. He sat up, began talking. It was as if a light had gone on inside of him,” Nguyen said. “When I told him later there were problems, he got worse immediately.” Three days later, with his youngest son and his wife by his side, Nghia Luu lost strength.

“He kept waiting and waiting for them,” Anh said, “I told him, ‘You need to eat so you have energy.’ But he said, ‘I can’t eat. I don’t think I can wait any longer.’ His eyes stayed wide open the whole time, even after he didn’t know anything anymore.”

Anh didn’t want to tell her sons that their father had died until they arrived in the U.S. She wanted to tell them in person. At one point, Son, fearing the worst, telephoned about his father’s health but his mother was evasive.

In Vietnam, her two sons spent time and money seeking the expensive medicines--obtainable only by a daylong bus ride. They left the country with just the bags of medicine and the clothes they wore.

Luu will be buried Sunday. His wife held off the funeral so the brothers could see their father one last time.

But the family’s troubles continue. They can’t afford to pay for the funeral, Nguyen said. The pastor has contacted the Vietnamese media for help in broadcasting the Luu family’s plight. A funeral home has donated a casket, but not enough money has been raised to cover his burial.

“They have already gone through so much,” he said. “It’s heartbreaking.”

Contributions to the Nghia Luu Trust Fund may be sent c/o Guaranty Bank of California, 9113 Bolsa Ave., Westminster, CA 92683.