The Day The World Turned Grey

December 06, 2025

Decemeber 6th, 2023.

I will remember this day vividly.

I woke up. I started with a look at my phone. Like any other day.

She was in the ICU, my phone said. She was admitted the day before. Big medical terms that painted a bleak picture. My heart sank.

My sister asked if I wanted to drive with her to South Florida to be with her in the hospital.

I had to wait for the handymen that was going to fix a pipe thats been leaking on the roof and it really needed to be done before the big Asia trip. I got a call that they were delayed until the afternoon. So I had to wait. My heart raced with anxiety.

I was also juggling work and also speaking with a recruiter about a new role, a role I was ready to accept but had to iron a few details out.

I was pacing around the house. My heart was in my throat and also in my stomach. It was agony. Time went so slow. And I had to wait it out. Patience was a distant friend today. More updates came and went. She had stabilized. I let out a yell of encouragement in the air. The handymen came and fixed things up rather quickly. Great. I met up with my future boss and ironed out the final details. I accepted the offer right there and then. Excellent. Things were turning around.

Once I got off the call, I called my dad and started driving towards Daytona to pick him up since he was using my old car to go to work and that car would not survive the 4 hr drive to South Florida.

Tina prepared an overnight bag for me and had to stay behind for the cats. I had an hour drive ahead of me to pick up my dad. So I went. That was a long hour of uncertainty but I got to my parent’s house. No updates so far so I thought we were in the clear. No news is good news.

My dad had just got off work so he had to pack some stuff up. I waited around the house. I hadn’t eaten all day and it was already the afternoon so I had a bag of chips and some water. What was this feeling I was feeling? There were still no updates in a while.

My dad said he had a bad feeling since no updates. I didn’t want to hear that so I waited in the car to leave.

Now we were all packed up and started our drive to South Florida. Still no updates. I was driving. My dad asked for an update in the family group chat. I now wish he didn’t.

“She go in peace” was my mom’s reply back.

I was in the driver’s seat but I felt directionless. I felt hopeless. Sadness filled to the brim. I concentrated on the road with wet eyes. I felt my heart move to the back of my throat. I gripped the wheel tight. The sun was bright but it was greyed out. The roads were empty. We drove in silence for a long while.

My dad would get random phone calls from people I did not know but they were asking for updates. The vietnamese community runs on gossip and my dad was answering those questions. My vietnamese is not good but I understood what was asked and how my dad replied. “mất rồi”. Loosely translated, it meant “we lost her already” or “she’s gone”. The car ride was no longer quiet.

We made a driver switch and also to get gas. I was able to catch up on texts and was able to get in contact with my brother. He was actually in the middle of a work trip in Dallas and had to cut it short. We were designated to go pick him up at the airport. We drove further and picked him up and routed our way to the family house where everyone was gathered. We pulled up and there were already plenty of cars there. I did not know what to expect.

I did know that this was going to be hard. I just didn’t know how to handle it all.

In Buddhism and maybe in general, there is a lot of talk about energy and its manifestation in feelings and in people. The energy in the house when we arrived was absolutely grey. First person I saw was her oldest sister and she bawled when she saw us. All her young nieces and nephews were gathered on the couch, somber looks on their faces. I really can’t put into words all the feelings in that house that night but this was the moment I finally felt it. She was no longer with us.

My heart was already broken into pieces but it further broke being in that house that night.

The she that I was writing about was my cousin Trang Van.

She made my childhood bright. I feel like I had a very standard millenial childhood, not dominated by social media and technology but one that had a lot of outdoors and MTV and weird 2000s-ness. She was the bit of whimsy in much of my life. She got me into writing, anime and music. She had a hand in shaping alot of my interests today. I am not sure who I would be without her.

Most of what was written above was done on January 11, 2024. I really did not have the heart to finish writing it as I had just got back from Asia and wanted to keep what I had in my head and my heart but I needed to put it somewhere and come back when I was ready.

I am still not ready but I am more willing now. Today is the second anniversary of her death. I still remember a lot of the details written above vividly. What really stayed with me was that first walk into the house, her family house. There was just a density of sad energy that beared down on everyone in the house. It was heavy and overbearing like a torrential rainfall that would not quit and we were all standing in it.

This was the second major loss that I have experienced, first one being my cat Loki. I always thought losing someone in my more immediate life would have happened in my old age (not sure when that starts). This grief felt different. It was piercing, it made me reexamine things in my life.

One thing I remember from that day is how powerless I felt. There was literally nothing I could do to improve her chances. No amount of money, no amount of good will, no amount of good karma. When I was pacing around the house waiting for updates, waiting for the handymen, just waiting, I started praying. Pleading with whoever would hear, “Please let her pull through! Please!“. That fell on deaf ears. I had no power in this. The only thing left was loss and grief.

In the movies, when characters deal with grief, maybe while at the bar or in the family house after the funeral (not sure why but Brooklyn 99 comes to mind), they would say things like “He was one of the good ones, I was always happy when he came into the room.” Something to that effect. I somewhat get that now but I am still overcome with grief any time I think of her and that day. So it looks like I am still grieving to this day but I hope one day I can celebrate her life and thank her for everything.