Author: Thao Ha, PhD

When I was in elementary school, I wrote poems that my teachers praised and displayed. When I was in middle school, I was placed in Honors English. Same in high school. When I applied to college, I wanted to major in English to become a writer. For fear of disappointing my parents, though, I chose Biology. It was a path of most resistance that led to a fruitless end. Through a series of missteps and poor decisions, I didn’t find my educational calling until I was 27 years old. By then, I realized Sociology was my intellectual vibe – it approaches knowledge by examining the world through a lens that connects the micro (daily life) to the macro (things larger than the individual).

I glided through the bachelor’s degree, MA and PhD. I’ve read the confessions of many others about their harrowing experiences in graduate school. For me, it was a breeze. Maybe because I was older, more mature and more focused on the rigors of graduate school life. I was very shy publicly, but graduate seminars were a stage where I commanded the performances of intellectual discourse and debate. I was passionate about theory as an abstract examination. Criminology, race, gender and immigration were, and are, concrete personal explorations tied to societal structures and institutions. I took electives like Social Entrepreneurship, Sports Management, the Economics of Labor Movements, and the History of Sexuality in American Life. I like to think of myself as always open to new information of all sorts. Financially, I was okay. Mom and Dad paid for my car insurance. All other bills were manageable since I was given a tuition free admittance and $1200 a month for a 20 hour a week job as a teaching assistant. I subsidized that income with side jobs like refereeing volleyball games and tutoring the Longhorn athletes. I ate a lot of ramen, white rice with eggs and spam, and canned green beans, but I hit the gym at least five times a week.

As an undergad, I published a book chapter and presented at a conference. Graduate school gave me more opportunities like that. When I completed my doctorate, my mentors encouraged me to publish my dissertation as a book. It examined the areas of market forces, race, and gender in immigrant entrepreneurship (Vietnamese nail salons and Vietnamese shrimpers). The study went on to become two documentary films, but I never attempted to publish it as a book. I became a community college professor and continued to publish in academic spaces. I never thought about the literary world. Why should I? The academic world was my oyster, a natural place in my head that produced shimmery pearls of epistemological wisdom. But during summer breaks, I sought out literary books that filled my heart with epic stories of the imagination. I’m a binge reader. I know immediately by the end of the first chapter if I’m going to finish a book or not. I read The Bronze Horseman by Paulina Simmons, an 832 page book, in two sittings. Starting at 8pm one humid evening, I dashed through 3/4 book by 5am the next dewy morning. I slept 3 hours and woke up to finish it by the time Mom called out to us to come eat lunch. It is “a story of forbidden love set in World War II Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) during the infamous and deadly Leningrad blockade. The day that war is declared in Russia, 17-year-old Tatiana fatefully meets secretive Alexander, a soldier in the Red Army.” It doesn’t end well, and that’s why I loved it. Love stories were my thing but only if it ended tragically. Call it my dark side, maybe an essentialist part of my soul that knew my past, present, and perhaps future life would always stumble into a place of love painted in shades of black and grey.

So how did I become engrossed into literary writing? It started with a professional development workshop at my college about 7 years ago. The topic was about blogging. The best thing I learned from that workshop was “don’t write for an audience, write for yourself.” It helped answer the question that held me back from ever writing just for the sake of storytelling – who wants to read what I have to write? Academically, there is purpose in the “educational” aspect that makes it “easy”. Gather the data and pull insight from theoretical approaches to form some sort of intellectual conclusion. Easy. But in all honesty, who reads that kind of academic shit anyway? Other academics and students in an academic setting.

I started my blog soon after. At first, I infused academic topics (citations included) with a little bit of storytelling – always with a touch of personal experience or insight. It felt extremely satisfying to be free from the rigid structures of academic writing. Write just to write. In the process, something transformational happened – when I started to share feelings and emotions, some sort of magical chemistry of the body unplugged the portals between my head and my heart.

When I ended my marriage in 2016, I didn’t want to explain it to everybody in my life. Too many disappointed family, friends, and in-laws to answer to. My ex-husband felt the same way. I asked his permission to write about it. He said yes, and so, I did – Love, Loss, and Wishes for My 43rd Birthday. The response was overwhelming, in a good way. I wrote with complete raw honesty, describing events, emotions, thoughts, and insights. I couldn’t help it, though, I had to include sociological studies to “back up my claims” – for me, though, I was an example of one person’s lived experience that was affirmed in its ties to the broader understanding of relationships, marriage, family, and infertility.

Since then, I’ve written when inspired. So, if you’re inspired to write, I encourage you to start a blog. Write for yourself. You’ll find it liberating. Share as much as you want, but only the parts you want. You don’t have to divulge anything too personal for you. But you do want to communicate your emotions and those inner thoughts that you might not say aloud, because if you don’t, readers won’t feel much. I think that’s what most readers want – they want to feel. Describe settings, actions and people. Use the five senses. Sight – what did you observe? Sound – what did you hear? Touch – what were the textures? Smell – what were the scents? Taste – what was the palate? Also, it’s very important to learn about “show, don’t tell.”

For a sabbatical in 2018, I was encouraged by an author friend to write a memoir. So, I did. Memoirs aren’t biographies. You don’t start with the day you were born and end to present day. You choose a significant event or period in your life that illustrates a broader theme. I chose to write about being a refugee girl who grew up in Texas and went through a wild ride as an adolescent, shifting my life course after being shot during a pool hall brawl. The story was to be told as “from gang life to professor.” I completed a full manuscript draft in three months – 16 chapters with approximately 100,000 words. In early 2019, another author friend sent the manuscript to his agent. She liked it, but said I need a book proposal to get it published. Now, let me share about the pathways to publishing a book. There are essentially 3 pathways. There is a lot of information that I could write about, but I found a recent post that explains it all very well, with pros and cons of each route. After reading about the 3 pathways, I explored all of them.

I followed the book proposal template that my author friend’s agent shared with me. I had never written one before, and it was hard as fuck to do. I had to take a template and tailor it to me and my story. I found a great post that explained how to write a book proposal for nonfiction narrative (which includes memoir). I never got around to finishing it in 2019 because the documentary film “Seadrift” was released, and as the film’s advisor and one of the associate producers, I traveled regularly for screenings across America. By the end of 2019, I went back to the proposal. My author friend checked in on me regularly, asking me where it was at and holding me accountable. Find someone in your corner to hold you accountable.

In early 2020, I completed the proposal during my winter break. But then, Covid-19 came upon us. By summer 2020, Vu got sick, and by fall 2020, he was gone. It was August that I poured my guts out into a blog to ask for help. I never, ever, ever expected it to make the reach that it did. Donations, readers, comments, private messages and emails came in by the thousands. After he passed, I had to grieve. I tried to write about it, thinking it would be cathartic. But when I did, all I did was sob. In retrospect, I’ve learned that sobbing helps. It’s a natural element of grief and healing.

I decided to take a break from writing my blog. Crying uncontrollably every few nights was taking its toll on me. I returned to academic writing, publishing a journal article (2021) and a book chapter (to be released in 2024). But the literary world wouldn’t leave me alone, and I’m grateful it didn’t! I was invited to write for a magazine and a pop culture book. They were small pieces, but to be asked to write in literary form was affirming. In the summer of 2022, I was healing well, having been through quite a bit of introspection and soul searching. I decided it was time to come back to my memoir. One of the best things you can do for your writing is to read in your genre. I did just that. I was done with 5 memoirs – On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (loved it), Sigh Gone (was ok) by Phuc Nguyen, House of Sticks (was good) by Ly Tran, Minor Feelings by (was enlightening) Cathy Park Hong, Tastes Like War (was sad but too many academic insertions disrupted the narrative) by Grace Cho – when my girlfriend lent me a copy of Heavy: an American Memoir by Kiese Laymon. This book rocked my mind and spirit.

Heavy is a poignant memoir about growing up a “hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi.” He writes so vulnerably about sexual violence as a child, his suspension from college (I can relate), his journey to New York as a college professor (I can relate), and his complex battles with weight, relationships, addiction to gambling (I could not relate but it was compelling to understand his experiences). He writes in epistolary form – letter writing, as it is written to his mother with whom he has a challenging relationship. She was a single mom with trauma and addictions of her own. She was extremely hard on him, not wanting him to be a “failure” of a black male in America. The book starts off with his confession that she wanted him to write a success story, but he cannot. I read the book in one sitting, starting on a sunny Saturday afternoon and finishing by 3am. I woke up the next morning and read through some passages I bookmarked. I bought my own copy and read through it again. It was revelatory on many levels. First, the ending does not have a silky ribbon wrapped around it. Second, obstacles are overcome in some ways and not so much on others. Lastly, Laymon and those in his book are both good and flawed. Humans are nuanced. I loved it.

The biggest revelation in reading Heavy was its epistolary approach. I took a walk one morning without Pork Chop. He’s so slow! Sniffing every bush, flower, tree trunk, hydrant, and pole along the way. In my brisk pace, I studied the foggy marine layer above me, the bright flowers below me, and the crashing waves in front of me as I approached the beach. The breeze touched my skin and recharged my brain. It dawned on me. What the fuck… my memoir will be in epistolary form! A love letter to Vu.

I started in October 2022. Every night, I wrote from 9pm to whenever. No social life, except for the occasional non-profit or campus events. If someone wanted to have dinner with me, it had to end by 8pm so I could be home to start writing by 9pm. I got little sleep on many nights (3-4 hours), but I supplemented those nights with hour long naps the next afternoon. This was my rhythm for 3 months. I had a good friend read each chapter when it was done. He gave me incredible feedback along the way. He bugged me every few days, “You done with the next chapter yet? I need my dope!” By December 2022, I completed a brand new, 100,000 word manuscript – one long tragic love story in the form of a letter written to Vu. I spent many hours pouring through our letters and selected passages that would fit into the story. Readers will get a peek into the words between us during our time together.

In early 2023, I was still thinking about which path to take for publication. I spoke with authors who did self-publishing, vanity/hybrid publishing, and traditional publishing. In honesty, the idea of traditional publishing was of interest because to me, it meant something “prestigious” – affirmed by the “professionals”, but I was afraid my writing wouldn’t be good enough. These other traditionally published authors have degrees in writing, have been in writing retreats, and have other significant literary published works. I have none of those. Then again, several of these authors are academics, like me. But the self-doubt in me was reverberating loudly in my head. My traditionally published author friends told me I had to try this route first. If it doesn’t work out, then consider otherwise. So, I did. I wrote a new book proposal during my winter break and started researching how to find a literary agent. Then I started querying agents in mid January. Some through direct email. Some through Query Manager. Different agents ask for different things. It took me many long nights to research a long list of agents that were looking for memoirs/narrative nonfiction. I created a document listing their name and their method of querying. I did them in batches. Ten on the first round, then early February, another ten. Then another ten in March. In April, I submitted my full manuscript to DVAN’s (Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network) call for Vietnamese/Southeast Asian memoirs.

While I waited for responses, I spoke to a couple of people who published the vanity press route. For some reason, the thought of paying money to publish my book nagged at me. Maybe the refugee in me didn’t want to shell out for it. Same with self-publishing, which also comes with all the work by yourself. I ain’t got time for that! But then, I spoke to someone who self-published, and he loved the process. He shared that it’s not hard to do, and since I have a good network of people in my corner, marketing wouldn’t be difficult. Inspired by him, I was on the cusp of going that route, especially when the query rejections started coming to my inbox. I wasn’t deterred though, taking nothing personally. I knew it would be hard to land an agent. It’s part of the process. Everyone gets rejected. My author friends told me they were rejected up to 100 times before they got a literary agent! Some agents replied very kindly, some replied with what seemed like a template/form rejection, and some ghosted me, never even responding – even one who was a referral. By early May, with no takers, I was seriously thinking about the self-publish route when a Zoom meeting altered my course.

A young Vietnamese woman author was writing her second traditionally published book. She writes fiction but wanted to make sure her settings were accurate. This second book is set in Houston, Texas. Several people told her “If you want info on Houston Vietnamese, you gotta talk to Thao Ha.” We met on Zoom, and she asked me about growing up in Houston and in the Vietnamese community. When I got to my adolescent years, explaining my involvement with gangs, she gasped loudly and put her hand on her mouth with eyes wide open. She blurted out, “Oh my gosh, wait. Wait. Thao, you wrote that blog, didn’t you?! The one about your loved one in prison!” I confirmed that it was me. She then stated, “Oh my God, I remember reading that and crying so bad and sharing it with all my friends. I was in Seattle at the time, but it reached me, and I can’t believe I never put two and two together until now that it was you!” We stopped talking about her book. “Thao, you have to write a book!” To which I responded, “Thank you for that. I did! I’m in the middle of querying agents, but it’s been about 4 months and no takers. This summer I have time off so I think I’ll self publish.” She slammed her hand on her desk and replied vigorously, “Oh hell no, Thao! You are not going to do that. Your writing is too good for that. I’ll kill you if you do that. Please, you have to find an agent and do traditional publishing!”

She referred me to her agent. I sent her agent my book proposal. Within a couple of weeks, her agent wanted a virtual meeting with me. I did all my homework on what to do in a meeting with an agent. Two days before the meeting, I read through a Twitter storm about the agency that this agent works at. It was bad and related to how the management treated one of the agents (not the one I was meeting) and their authors when the agent was let go abruptly. It got me anxious, but my author friends said not to worry too much. Apparently this shit happens more often than one would think in the literary publishing world. Yikes! Maybe I should just go back to the self-publishing idea. But I went through with the meeting. I loved this agent’s energy, and the meeting went so well! She offered to represent me (as this is often the case when an agent wants to meet). Luckily, she was going on sabbatical for the month of June and said to take my time, that I could let her know my decision when she’s back. This was great because standard practice is that when you get an offer, you go back to any open queries and let those agents know you have an offer of representation and give 2 weeks for a reply. So, I did that. Some agents from my query months ago replied with a kind rejection. Two agents replied and requested I send them my full manuscript. One agent asked me to revise my manuscript and resubmit. She wrote:

It is a fascinating and dramatic way to think about love, chance, and opportunity. I have such a strong sense that our narrator (you!) is a thoughtful, wise, vulnerable person who is very much worth hearing from. But the project still reads as fairly raw. It feels like a therapy journal as much as a book manuscript. There are certainly ways in which a raw, direct voice can work, but the material here reads as still somewhat unprocessed to me. I wonder if a developmental editor would be helpful to you. A few freelance editors who come to mind are ___, ___ , and ___. All of this aside, ___ tells me you have nice interest from multiple agents, which is terrific. I hope another agent has a strong vision for the book with you and you have great success with it. I would love to buy a copy when that time comes!

I viewed her email as very positive, but I knew in my heart that my writing is indeed a therapeutic journey that I hope readers will embark with me.

My Vietnamese fiction writer friend was still worried about the agency troubles even though her agent offered me representation. She connected me with another referral to an agent who represents a friend of hers. The agent asked me to submit my query through Query Manager. The next day, she emailed asking to meet with me. Four days later, we spoke on the phone, and she offered to rep me. I was excited about her. She’s a quick thinker. I got the sense she was all about business. A lot of advice about getting an agent points to understanding that this should be a mutually beneficial and solid, long term relationship. But it’s key to remember, books are a business. Remind yourself that there are many reasons an agent might love your story, but if they don’t think they can sell it, they won’t rep you. There are many reasons why an agent rejects your project – some you can control, some you can’t. Again, it’s a business. And my potential agent, Amy Bishop of Dystel, Bourret & Goderich, LLC, was all about business. She did want me to rethink my structure and wanted me to rework the framing. I liked what she suggested. I took a couple of weeks to think it over. I read Crying in HMart (very good) by Michelle Zauner, Living Remedy (also very good) by Nicole Chung, and Stay True (excellent) by Hua Hsu (was recently announced as 2022 Pulitzer Prize winner for Memoir). The structure of these 3 books were all the same! I could absolutely see how I could rework my manuscript and mold it to that form while still holding true to my original intent.

I hired an attorney to review the contract. It took two weeks and $900 for the attorney to get it in the shape I wanted it. I had read up on what to know about agency contracts. I sent it to Amy. Two days later, she sends me back a version that explained what changes they accepted and what they could not (and why they could not). She was thorough and was quick with her turnaround. I let it sit for a day and felt good about it. By the end of June, I signed the contract. I wrote to the other agents who had my proposal but had not responded. I let them know I was withdrawing because I found an agent. The following week, I got on a call with Amy, and she explained what she wanted a revised book proposal. She also noted she wanted to pitch to publishers in September. Wow, that is a fast turnaround. She gave me an agency guideline for nonfiction proposals and sample of one (a memoir) written by an author she reps. She told me to take my time, that she was taking time off from July 20 to July 31 to get married. But I could not wait. I got to work on in right away. My parents were in town so I hung out with them all day and evening and wrote when they went to sleep. Five days later, I sent it to her. I wanted it in her queue – she’s got other clients sending her stuff, too! On July 19, the day before she took off, she sent me her feedback. She is an amazing editor! I worked on the edits and sent them back the night of July 30. The same morning of July 31, she wrote that she wanted to include my project in their newsletter they publish 3 times a year. It goes to their list of over 2,000 editors and film contacts.

When I read the email, I could not help but smile. I felt warm and fuzzy and excited! I worked on it that night and sent it the next day. She gave me feedback the following day. By Aug 2, we were both pleased with it. I can’t wait to see it in the newsletter!

On Aug 7, she gave me feedback on my revised proposal. It was light compared to the prior feedback. I worked on it right away and sent it back the same night. At this point, I feel like I definitely made a great choice. I love her fast pace because clearly, I like to work fast, too. I’m waiting to hear back, but I have a feeling it will come soon in the upcoming weeks since September is around the corner. In the meantime, I have classes to get ready for (Aug 21 is the first day of classes) and workshops to host and meetings to attend. I have non-profit events to prep for and board meetings too hold. I have family I need to take care of and talk to everyday. I have friends I need to touch base with and a sweet dog I have to feed and walk and bathe and groom. I have a life outside of this writing process, and that’s what keeps me going instead of being anxious waiting for the process to come. What will come will come.

And that is where I’m at, my friends. I’m keeping the faith that when the project goes on submission to publishers in September that it will go as it should. I understand it will take time. I understand it might not have any takers or hopefully many takers or just one taker which is all you need. I understand it might take another round of submissions. I understand it may not sell, and my agent will know what to do next. I also understand I have other options should this not work out. I understand that no matter what, the story will be out there for readers someday. Whatever happens in the next few months, I am grateful for how far I’ve gotten and proud of myself for the work I’m putting in. I enjoy writing so much. I talked to my mom this morning and told her my plans today to write this blog because when I announced that I landed an agent, several people messaged me wanting to learn about my writing process – they want to do it, too. She asked me how I learned to write so well. I have no idea. I really don’t. I just do it. And that is what you should do if you’re inspired to go on a writer’s journey. Just write. And I hope the steps and links I provided help with the technical pieces of this process. Not everyone makes it, but if you don’t try, you’ll never know.

It is with solemn heart and shattered dreams that I write this last letter to my Love, Hoang Vu Tran. I started writing last night with the intention to update you all, but I didn’t finish it. I woke up today with every intention of posting an update for everyone, especially because I felt the end was near. I was hoping to get prayers and love and hope for a last push to bring him home. The writ was to be filed this upcoming week. But it happened so fast. And while it hurts so much, I think of him, and he is no longer suffering. For me to wish he would hang on longer is only to serve me. I am relieved he is at peace. Thank you to everyone for all the love and support and hope and prayers and generosity and care. This journey is not over because I know he’s watching over us. He’ll be with me as I continue my life by doing exactly what he wanted me to do – to be happy, to love, to care, and to serve.

My Most Precious Vu,

Your pain and suffering are unbearable to me. The physical wreckage of aggressive cancer. The miserable isolation of incarceration. The anxiety of imminent mortality. Every night, I reach for you, yearning for a connection, a word, a sound, a look, a smile, anything at all, just to sense you. Did you sense me reaching out to you? Knowing that you must endure this alone left me with a sick heart and a fiery rage against the cruelty of the system. I wrote you every night despite knowing that you can’t understand my words because the cancer had spread to your brain. I sent you digital photos hoping they convey the words “I Love You, Vu” a thousand times to your heart. Did the words and photos pump any life into you, My Love? Because you needed it so badly. Your blood pressure was dangerously low, and so, your heart could stop, and so, you let me know, through a nurse’s call, “Miss Thao, Vu wanted me to call you and inform you that he signed a Do Not Resuscitate form. He said he wants to go peacefully.” I inhale deeply and exhale with the despair of knowing the end can come any day. I’ve been nothing but melancholy when I realized the end was near.

I look back at this journey with you and recall that in the span of 60 days, we’ve been granted 3 calls. Being deprived of contact, the 43 total minutes felt like I had won the lottery each time. My Love, you’ve never had a chance to do FaceTime before. I’ll always remember the way your eyes lit up when the first call on August 18 connected. I saw the smile in your eyes when that sweet voice of yours uttered these five romantic words, You look so beautiful, Sweetie. You are the ill one, but it is you who soothed me. I hope I soothed you, too. You had just finished your first chemo cycle. Although you were in a wheelchair, I felt so much hope from seeing the brightness in your eyes and the laughter and joy we shared. They said 10 minutes. They gave us 11. Eleven blissful minutes of a FaceTime that will be etched into my memories of us.

I’ll always sadly remember your second call, 18 days later, in the middle of the night, on a phone belonging to a stranger I won’t identify. Thank you, compassionate person, whoever you are, for the extended call. You gave us 19 minutes.

Baby, please help me. I need you to call them and please help me. You’re the only one who can help me.

You were scared because they could no longer help you with treatments. You were scared because they put you in a van to transport you to hospice and you fell. You were scared that no one would take care of you. You can’t walk. You can’t sit. You can’t eat. You are wasting away as the cancer takes over your pancreas, stomach, liver, adrenal glands, neck, and lymph nodes, having lost 40 lbs., 20% of your body weight, cachexia is what they call it. One third of cancer patients die from cachexia. Please don’t let this be the end of you. Baby I’m trying to eat but it hurts so bad. I need help using the restroom. I can’t do anything myself. I just lay here. I’m so sorry that you’re suffering so much, Babe. You still look so handsome to me. You break a small smile. I will start making calls first thing in the morning for you. I will do whatever I can, I promise. I love you.  

My Love, I hear you. I see you. You lay there alone, in a hospital bed, itchy from the cancer that had surfaced on your skin, doped up on narcotics to ease the ache from the cancer that had spread to your bones. My Love, I tried. I called all the numbers I had. I begged them to help. But they are robots, bound by bureaucratic strings that strangle the humanity out of them. I’m so sorry I could not save you. I’m so sorry they could not save you. There’s nothing any of us can do to save you. You’ll go to hospice soon.

I’ll always painfully remember our third call. Our last call. Five days ago. The corrections officer said we have 5 minutes. You asked her for more. She said she got work to do so she can’t. I know she heard every word between us. I know it was emotional for her. Because she couldn’t hang up. She let us say what we needed to say. I looked at the call log when it ended. Thirteen minutes.

Babe, they’re sending me to hospice. I’m in so much pain. I got like 8 cancers. Even brain cancer. I can’t think right. Can’t even read your letters. I don’t think I can do this no more. I tried for you, but I can’t live like this much longer. If I go, they ain’t gonna save me. I don’t want them to break my ribs. I signed the DNR. I’m sorry, Babe.

I see you wipe a tear from your eye. I see you scratching. I see you squeeze your temples and wince in pain. My Sweet Vu, will you remember my words to you as you looked at me so intensely?  

Listen to me, Babe. Do not say sorry. I need you to hear this. Can you hear me clearly? You nod. I love you so much. I have loved since the moment we laid eyes on each other 28 years ago in that dimly lit karaoke room. I will always love you as my future continues to unfold, and never without you, though, because you run through my veins and into my heart and throughout every fiber of my being. I can feel you, Babe. You are always with me. And because I love you more than I could ever convey in words, I want you to understand what my actions are saying when it comes to you.

My Love, I will be okay with whatever you feel is best for you. Please do what you must, even if that means you have to let go so you can have peace. I will stay strong and accept whatever happens, whenever it happens. Fight or go in peace, it’s okay with me. You have fought so hard already. You’ve hung on this long. Thank you for fighting. Thank you for being so brave. You are so handsome and such a beautiful person to me. When it is your time to let go and as you come into the light of a place that will bring you peace and healing, please remember these words as my last words to you here on Earth. Sweetheart, you best damn visit me in my dreams and let me feel your presence. I’ll take you in any form. Know that I’ll be there someday, too. Do you remember the lyrics of that country song you wrote me years ago about a person waiting for another? You nod. You wrote those lyrics because you always wanted to be romantic in your words to me. It was your way of asking me to wait for you. Well, it’s going to be your turn to wait for me now. I promise, when it’s my time, my soul will come search for yours. I’ll see you on the other side.

You smile. I want to cry so badly, but I hold back my tears. I never want you to see me cry because I know it’ll make you cry. I breathe in deeply and fight my heart’s agony. I need you to know, until it’s truly over, I’ll keep fighting for you out here. I still got the lawyers and we are still gonna try to bring you home.

Even in your condition, at the end stage of life, you can still throw your smart ass humor at me. You crack a smirk. Bring me home. Is home Heaven? Then you smile. Your smile makes me smile. Then you laugh. Your laugh makes me laugh. And I say to you, home is to mom and dad. But if you don’t make it there, Heaven is a beautiful home, too. It is a place of love, and peace, and no suffering.

Your eyes get that intense look. You pause, the way you always do before you say something that will usually make my heart swell with emotion. Babe, I just wish I was with you. You are my home. I’m sorry that I’m probably not gonna make it home to you. This shit sucks doesn’t it?  

No, don’t apologize, My Sweet Love. They say home is where the heart is. Wherever we are, since our hearts are with each other, we are home.

You right. You always right. I love you so much.

I thank the officer for the time, she turns the camera on her, a masked face with tears dripping from her eyes. She said, “No problem, sweetie. Y’all take care of yourselves.”

Babe, these are the lyrics you quoted from the song:

If you get there before I do, don’t give up on me.
I’ll meet you when my chores are through;
I don’t know how long I’ll be.|
But I’m not gonna let you down, darling wait and see.
And between now and then, ’til I see you again,
I’ll be loving you. Love, me.

You never asked me to wait for you to get out of prison. You told me to continue living my life the way I want. You didn’t know what you could ever offer me. But we both know, you offered me unconditional love. You taught me how to love myself first so that I can truly love and serve others.

Along with those lyrics, you wrote that it seems like one of us is always waiting on the other. When we were younger, we couldn’t communicate well to each other. So we always missed out on each other even if one was waiting on the other. We could never utter the words that would convey the message, “Come back to me. I’ve been waiting for you.” And now, as mature adults who are still crazy about each other, we have never had to explicitly communicate those words because it was an understanding between us, something we felt in our hearts and held in our minds, a conviction and commitment that we would vow to when the time would come. You always made clear to me that you understood one thing for sure… that I would always come running to you. But that road to you on this Earth is gone. Please wait for me, My Darling Vu. I’ll have to run to you in Heaven. It’s now my turn to send the lyrics to you.

If you get there before I do, don’t give up on me.
I’ll meet you when my chores are through;
I don’t know how long I’ll be.
But I’m not gonna let you down, darling wait and see.
And between now and then, ’til I see you again,
I’ll be loving you. Love, me.

In this journey of love and incarceration, terminal cancer feels like a cruel way to end our story. Distance, time, metal bars, and concrete walls couldn’t stop the love from happening, but cancer wrecked everything. Cancer tortured you physically and mentally. It tormented us knowing you are suffering. Cancer shoved you down a path of rapid deterioration and agonizing hurt. With each passing day, we watched you lose a bit of life. You had been hurting since June, and it wasn’t until July 17^th that they finally sent you to the hospital to see a specialist. This is after you collapsed multiple times, were taken to the ER, and had lost 30 lbs. in one month. How much suffering must one endure before the prison system even looks your way?

My Love, when you took your last breath, my hope is that you knew that I am full of gratitude for the time I had on this Earth with you. May you feel the love between us that spanned almost three decades and brought us together now. I write these heavy words with tears flowing and lips quivering. These lips have longed to kiss you one last time and whisper gently to you, “I’m here, Vu. I love you.” But now it will not come to be.

I am angry at this journey you have had to trek. Fuck you, cancer. Fuck you, prison system.

I question in a philosophical way, “did cancer take your life, or did prison take it?” I would say both. Cancer took away the future. Prison took away the past. I remember your dad’s words when you were sent away for 60 years. “They’re burying my son alive.” That is true. But your extraordinary spirit found a way to live in the present. Be in the moment. You once wrote me:

Our time together when we were young was really too short but our feelings for each other are everlasting. In that short amount of time, you touched a very deep part of my heart that I’ll take with me to the grave. I read a philosopher named Schopenhauer who wrote “men spend their lives either reflecting on the past or anticipating the future. They therefore miss the moment.” But I think this saying reflects more on men who are incarcerated. Right now, I am living in a state he called, “ad interim” – in between – which means the moment is nothing. This statement would be very true if you hadn’t come back in my life. Even while incarcerated, I want to live in the moment with you through your work, your love, and your dreams of the future for us. Thao, I don’t want to miss anymore moments with you. I know we can’t foresee the future, but we can always hope for the outcome of what we want. For now, I want you to know I’m living in the moment and feeling alive because of you.

Our moments when we lived fully with each other are precious gifts I’ll hold with me always. Back then in 1992 through now and into the future… letters, phone calls, visits, songs, hugs, kisses. I will continue to live my life the way you always wanted me to… with happiness and joy and service to others. I will get there someday, but right now, my heart is heavy as I reflect on when you started dying.

You started dying from cancer as recent as June. Over the course of days, your pain increased. While you were in a state of immense pain, you limped your way out of your cell into the day room, stood in line with a swollen foot, and made sure you called me on July 16^th, the anniversary of my first letter to you after being gone from your life for so many years. You made sure I got my favorite flowers, orchids, delivered to me on that day. They are so beautiful. Thank you for celebrating the anniversary of our reunion and always showing me how much you love and cherish what we have. You’ve always been a hopeless romantic. As tough as you were on the outside, I’ve always known the tenderness in you. Even as an incarcerated man, you always found a way to show me the romantic side of you. I would have never guessed that would be our last call from Beto Unit, the place they forced you to call “home” for the last 23 years.

You left for the prison hospital the next day. 4 days later, I received the news of your prognosis, and it broke us all down into shock and delirium. 9 days later, I received news that your prognosis was even worse than what was told to us before. 6 days later you began chemo treatment. 8 days later you spoke with the lawyer. He called me with a very disturbing update.

“Thao, he is not doing well. He’s in a wheelchair, needs assistance for the bathroom, his voice is very hoarse, he struggles to read your letters and struggles even more in writing, but he did write you a letter. He wants to make sure you got the letter.”

My Love, I saw the struggle in your writing, your once beautiful handwriting is now child-like print. I see you grappling to complete sentences.

August 10
Hi, Love. At the moment, I don’t understand a thing. All I understand is the pain and suffering. It’s very important that I talk to you. Please make it happen because you are the only one who can understand me. I need for things to get back to normal so at least I get back to my unit because if nothing else, at least use the phone and hear your voice. At first, I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t even able to read your letters or understand. When I did start to understand, all I did was cry. What is true cannot be denied. Every time I picked up the paper, I start crying all over once again.

Throughout our years together, we have bonded over our letters to each other. I had always hoped the last line of your last letter from prison to me would be dated some time in 2027: Babe, I’m coming home to you!

But instead, it is dated August 24, 2020: I don’t really know how long I can live like this, but for now I’ll keep trying for you. I love you very much.

Today, September 12, 2020, marks the end of our road together here on Earth. I am grateful you got a call with your whole family on August 27. You got to say I love you to everyone, and everyone got to say I love you to you. And lucky me, I got to ask you to marry me. With tears in your eyes, you nodded yes. Our family cheered in an uproar of joy. “Congratulations Thao & Vu!” I’m sure you didn’t want things to go down that way. You told your niece Tasi you’d call me wife one day. I think you would have wanted to ask me. You were old school like that. But you once wrote me, I’m very intrigued by this new you. A strong, independent, and bold woman. If I didn’t know you, I would be very intimidated. Good thing we have history. So you know damn well I’m not afraid to ask for what I want. Thank you for saying yes. For a short period of our time together, we had an intention to marry. I don’t regret anything. I know I gave you my all. And I know you for damn sure gave me your all. You always ended your letters telling me to take care of myself. I promise you that I will. Because there is still so much to be done in your name and in your honor. I thank you for being my guiding light here on Earth. I’ll see you in the light on the other side, Babe. No more darkness. No more pain. No more suffering. You are free now. Free at last. May you rest in Radiant Peace.

I really don’t like asking for help. Looking inward, perhaps it’s because I’m afraid to look weak, incompetent, or needy. I want to be seen as independent, capable, and fierce, and sometimes, I think that if I ask for help, it blemishes that reputation. That kind of thinking is harmful, I know.

So, I’m going to ask for your help. But before I do, I’m going to be vulnerable with you and share the secrets of my heart and of my past to explain why I need your help. Let’s take a trip to 1992.

Do you remember your first love? Was it magical and reckless and passionate and wild and tender and agonizing? They say first love is bittersweet. Sweet because you always remember it well; bitter because when it’s over there won’t be another one like it. It holds innocence, youth, naivete, and a belief in ever after. It’s the first dance, a song’s serenade, a joyride to nowhere, and a night at the beach on the rocks of mile long jetty where the salty splashes of waves sprinkle on the honey scented taste of locked lips and a soft embrace.

My first love was all those things and more. Vu is his name. He was handsome, strong, and had an endearing smile that he wasn’t afraid to flash. He wore his heart on his sleeve, doing too much for others and never enough for himself. In the era of our youth, the vultures of Vietnamese gang culture preyed on guys like him. He was physically strong and emotionally vulnerable to those in need. He was the “do anything for your friends even at the cost of yourself” type. He learned Bro Code. Bravado. Honor. Through a series of unfortunate events and loyalty to a friend, he found himself facing a life sentence in prison. We had broken up by then, but I always had a soft spot for him.

His sentence was 60 years for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. This was 1997. Today, guys are getting 10 years for the same charge. His mother asked the judge if she could hug her son. She was escorted to his holding cell where she held her son and cried.

When he began his 60 year punishment, he wrote me:

Thao, I just want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I don’t know how I’m going to pay you back. I know there’s a lot of things that came between us. I hope I didn’t cause you too much pain or anything for you to hold any grudges against me. I’m sorry if I did. I wish you well and best of luck in the future. I hope you find happiness wherever you may be. You deserve it. Please take care of yourself.

Love Always,
Vu Tran

P.S. I’m glad our lives crossed each other. Smile for me.

And that was it for me and my first love. An occasional birthday or Christmas card would come to my parents’ house. But no letters. No phone calls. No prison visits. No maintaining of anything. Just some bittersweet memories of a first love that I had to move on from.

His family dealt with the pain of constant disappointments in appealing the case. Vu’s friend confessed to the family, “Yes, Vu is innocent. I’m the one who did it.” But it takes years for appeals and by the time the trial was set, his friend had started a family. That changes anyone’s life.  He couldn’t honor Bro Code anymore. He was forced to choose, so he chose his family and left Vu to lose his last appeal. Vu and his family were devastated. They thought the confession would save him and he would be home soon. Instead, they cried with heartache that their brother, their son, would be locked away for life.

By then, I had made my way to earn a PhD and a career as a college professor. Through the years, I would think of him. I had loved again, even married, and planned to have children. But through my journey of self- growth and awareness, I adjusted my sails and chose a path that was true to myself and not what the world expected of me. It is a path of being childless and being unmarried. Two years ago, I was on sabbatical and started writing a memoir – a Vietnamese gang affiliated young woman who watched her friends fall one by one and then turned her life around to become a college professor who gives her all to those in need.

I remember my decision to leave that life behind. I had witnessed too many people close to me get steered toward sad endings – drugs, suicide, incarceration, even death. And then myself, getting shot in the middle of crossfire during a pool hall brawl. One after another, we were met with misery in the way life turns out when you’re lost and looking for somewhere to belong, for someone to feel like family, and what you find is a lifestyle that’s thrilling and dangerous and wrong but it feels like home so you think it’s safe. And then it catches up to you and now you’re paying the price for the stupid choices you made and can only understand why you made them after a lifetime of reflection.

In the writing process, I conjured the memories of my youth, and then, the deep emotions for Vu that I had buried began to resurface, brewing back to life the simmering feelings of young love. But young love is sometimes stupid love. Back then, I lost him because I was too immature to deal with hurt feelings, so I abruptly left him instead of having the kinds of conversations that could lead to forgiveness and continued nurturing. After a few months, I wanted him back, but my pride got in the way. He had his pride, too, so he didn’t wait for me to come around. When I eventually did, I told him I still loved him, but it was too late. He had already met someone else. But he always gave me signs that he still loved me. Like when he told me she got so upset that he was looking at our old pictures. Like when he asked me to go to his old apartment to retrieve a drawing of us that he had stashed in the a/c vent because he promised her that he would throw it away but he just couldn’t do it so he hid it. Like when he knew he was in trouble when the cops were looking for him so he called me and asked me to meet him because he needed someone to talk to. When I arrived at our rendezvous spot, I watched from my car as he was being arrested. That was the last day I saw him as a free man. It was always just a little too late for us. These are the kinds of moments that make you wonder, “What if? What if things had been different? What if we had made different choices?”

I sometimes wonder if we had stayed together, would he have been out with his friends that fateful night? I reimagined a different story for us. It could have been date night… maybe we were at the movies or having a late night meal at our favorite Vietnamese restaurant. Or maybe we would have been making out on the beach under the Texas moonlight, and he would not have ended up where he is. It hurt me to think this. I laid up at night crying over these thoughts.

After two decades of not contacting him, I reached out to him in a letter asking for forgiveness. He wrote back:

Your letter was very emotional to me to say the least. I have read it many, many times in the past few days. At the moment I am overwhelmed by the feelings and memories it has brought back of our time together. It made me smile and for some strange reason, it made me feel happy and content with my life.

Why would you think I would ever be upset with you for moving on and living your life? You seem to forget that I was once your friend first. I have always wanted what was best for you with or without me. I am so proud of you and the things you accomplished, through all the adversity it is amazing to me. By reading your letter now, I truly know the true meaning of the saying, “If you love something, set it free.”

And so, in the summer of 2018, a new journey presented itself. It led us to a renewed friendship and an opportunity to explore who we are as people today. We wrote letters every week.

As a professor who volunteers my time to mentor formerly incarcerated students, I’m dialed in to that area of work. When a media outlet had a call for essays from Asian American incarcerated voices, I encouraged him to do it. He didn’t want to, being scared that his 9^th grade education meant he wasn’t smart enough. But he did it for me as a gift for my birthday, which is in October, and his is, too. As my gift, I wanted to fly to Texas to visit him.

He hesitated for a bit. I was a bit surprised, thinking that surely, he would want me to visit. He explained:

I do want the opportunity to see you, but at the same time, it scared me. Not that I think it’ll be awkward but because we’ll click and what it’ll do to me. Someone once famous said that love is devastating and for some reason those words always stuck with me. It describes love perfectly, don’t you think? But no matter what the cost is, it’ll be worth the chance to see you.

I really started this journey believing I can just be your friend, but who was I fooling? For some reason, we are connected too strongly. I do hate myself for feeling this way because reality is with every step you take going forward in your life you move further out of my reach. You told me to fight for what I believe in. As you say, we shall see how this all comes to be.

I’m happy to finally get a chance to see you. I can’t wait.

It might devastate me, but I’ll always be fine no matter what. I will continue to love you from afar as I always have for years. I honestly believe that we can still love each other without ever being together again. You might ask, how can I say that? I can say that because I loved you when you broke up with me, I loved you as I sat inside these cold concrete walls, and I love you now while you are in love with someone else.

Yes, I was seeing someone at the time. But it did not have depth. As I processed these emotions that I had for Vu, I started to wonder if I had shut myself off and not been open to being vulnerable with anyone else again. Had the pain of losing him cut so deep that I never wanted to be that deep in again?  Was I protecting myself by always giving someone only a part of myself? I was honest with the guy I was seeing, and we talked about Vu. One night he said to me, “It seems that I have your body, and he has your soul.” I didn’t know how to respond, but I couldn’t refute it. Because the truth was, my feelings for Vu had depth. I was very much looking forward to seeing him again.

Sitting across each other, separated by thick glass and a rusty wired vent through which we talked, it felt like old times. We smiled and laughed. I was so happy at just the mere sight of him. We talked about what we could do to help him make the time go by faster to reach 2027, the year he would see parole. I said, “I can’t wait to kick it with you like good friends do.” To which he flashed that endearing smile and replied, “Oh no, we aren’t going to be friends.”  Then he laughed. I kept saying to him and telling myself, “Only time will tell.” And as time went on, through more letters, more visits, then weekly phone calls that lasted for hours, things blossomed organically. I eventually left the man I was seeing for reasons outside of Vu. It was clear we were not a good fit, and he needed to work on himself.

Over time, Vu and I were bonding – we would write and talk for hours about great works of literature, poetry, philosophical quotes, and lessons learned over the course of our lives. We felt aligned. Could it be that I was falling in love again? I wrestled with this. I recalled a quote he had read to me from C.S. Lewis, “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” I began to envision that perhaps it could be. There was a Texas bill in the pipeline that could give him a chance for parole immediately if it passed. It was a bill that would give inmates like him credit for working while incarcerated. Vu always had a job inside, but the Texas system pays him nothing for his labor. That is correct, $0.00 for his labor. This bill would give him “time served” credit for his labor. He had done 21 years, so if he earned time served, he would be at 31.5 years and would be immediately eligible for parole. I turned to my grassroots activism and got his family involved in speaking out to their legislative representatives to say yes to the bill. I wrote a testimonial letter to the Texas Inmates Family Association, and they wanted to include it in their testimony packet that they presented to the Texas House Committee. I poured my heart into it, but it failed to get out of committee. The bill died, and so did our hopes for his earned time credit.

I was heartbroken, devastated. And that’s my fault. I had expectations and when it didn’t come through, I couldn’t manage my emotions. This is something I’m working on and learning to undo. Expectations only lead to disappointment. I have to be grateful for whatever is in the moment without any expectations of the future. But at the time, I was not there yet. And so, I was cut deeply again. And through my selfish need to self-soothe through someone else instead of myself, I went to the place that would bring me comfort – into the arms of another man, an old friend who had been giving me a lot of attention lately. He was a good man. Not broken like the last guy. This guy had his life together, and he was on a journey of self-growth, which is what I needed. Again, I made it about me. And even though he wasn’t a good fit for other reasons, I made myself adapt to what could make us a good fit. In the course of this, Vu never wavered. He was torn, I’m sure, but he told me I had to live my life to the fullest. His voice, one of the sweetest sounds I know, was firm yet gentle, “You live your life the way you need to. And when that day comes that I’m out, I will never make you choose. You have to remember that whatever you do in life, you have to choose your happiness over anyone else’s. But I lost you once already, I’m not making that mistake again. So, I choose to love you and be in your life no matter what the circumstance unless you don’t want me.”

When I told the new guy about Vu, he was very caring. He cared about Vu and Vu’s situation, and he told me the same thing. “Thao, I would never make you choose. You have to do what is best for you. I’ll always support you.”

F*#+……… I was torn. And so, I carried on with both men in my life, buying myself some time to figure out how this would all work out in the end. I didn’t visit Vu for Christmas so I could spend time with the other person, even though he offered to drive me to visit Vu. Vu didn’t want us to spend our time together visiting him. I made it up to Vu by visiting him in January before school started. Then work started and I was a busy bee again. The one thing that was always a thorny issue with men in my life was how much time I spent with them. My new guy regularly had moments of unhappiness because I wasn’t giving him enough time or attention. For instance, in February of this year, I had an opportunity come up for a huge project. He wasn’t initially happy about it because he knew it would take up a lot of my time. That made me feel suffocated. Also, he has children. They’re really great kids. Well behaved, kind, and loving. But my aversion to being a mother made it difficult for me to want to fully engage. And their mother was not someone I felt a good energy with. This guy was giving me his all, but I couldn’t give my all in return. It didn’t look promising for us. And most of all, it wasn’t fair to him. I do love him, but it’s not the right kind of love that he deserves.

At the same time, what was promising was Vu’s writing journey. The essay he wrote for my birthday, “My Name is Chino” published in February. You can read it here. We felt aligned again – both of us presented with great achievements and opportunities at the same time. We celebrated with a marathon phone call that lasted 8.5 hours. It was like being young and together again when we talked on the phone all night into the next morning and neither person wanted to hang up. But the topics are mature now. One of our life goals was a writing project. We wanted to change the world one story at a time. Vu’s essay was featured in a national literature festival. He had also inspired and mentored several guys in his prison unit to write their stories. They were incredible essays. I had my students read the essays, and they learned about prison life from the eyes of prisoners themselves. They said it was one of their most favorite assignments ever in their college experience. These guys wrote me and told me the experience changed their lives, too. Vu and I made a good team. I had begun to see a vision of love in my future unravel before my eyes.

I had been working a lot on my inner self. Loving myself truly. Only then can I love others in an authentic way. I was making great progress, learning that I could not truly be happy with this man who has children. It was hard to let him go, but it was the right thing to do for me. I was ready to be alone and not rely on someone to physically soothe my emotional voids; voids that could only be filled by me loving me.

And then COVID hit. It gave me a lot of time for my own self and my inner reflections and growth. But prison is a scary place during this pandemic, and I was very worried about Vu. His unit was a COVID epicenter, and all prisons went on lock down. No calls, no visits. Only letters. But even that took a long time because the US Postal Service is being screwed with. I’m not here to get political. I’m just stating the facts. Mail is very delayed.

In our brief moments of contact, we felt confident we could make it through this treacherous time. We adjusted, like everyone around us, as the whole world and as our country traverses through this unprecedented event in history. We had hope and knew in our hearts what we needed to do. He needed to survive. I needed to thrive. I wrote about my worry for him in an essay titled, “Prison Life in the Time of Coronavirus.” It was requested for publication, affirming that when I pour my heart into writing, others value the story. That is how I thrive, by living with my heart and taking care of myself. What this COVID quarantine has done is help me realize that I can be alone. I don’t need to be in search of love because love is always there. It has always been there. It is within me. I just never looked there. I have thoroughly gained a deep perspective of love from this time alone. And having Vu in my life is not something I need. It’s something I want.

Finally, I want someone. Looking back, I was with men for what I thought I needed. A good husband to provide me stability, a family, and a place in the norms of society for acceptance. Vu doesn’t fit any of those. He’s an inmate in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. But he is my family because he makes me feel like home. I don’t need acceptance from anyone because I accept myself, and I accept him just as he is. I lost him once to our break-up. I lost him a second time to incarceration. I don’t want to lose him again. Third time is the charm, they say. 

COVID helped clarify the vision of my life. I can just be me. Help others in need. Share love and joy and happiness. Stand up and speak out for the rights and dignity of others. Teach others not what to think but how to think. I can see myself living this way until my last breath on Earth. Vu will be out someday, and he’ll be by my side.

And just as the shining light of love had paved our way towards freedom, potential, and possibilities, the door of our future slammed shut. It is so dark, my friends. So very dark. And I am drowning in an abyss of tears and heartache.

On July 21, a prison hospital doctor called and gave me the worst news of my life and surely, of his. Vu has stage IV pancreatic cancer. When the call ended, I slumped to the ground and cried with the feeling of a gaping hole in my heart, like someone was taking away the very essence of me, ripping at my spirit and tearing me down, turning me into a little girl lying on the floor with a crushed soul. I was back in those dismal places where I had lost him before and ached, but this anguish is different. We are not young and foolish anymore. We have grown into loving, caring, understanding, and wholesome people. When you see someone young die, you think it’s sad because they had so much potential. We are not young, but we have so much potential.

For days, I stayed in this sorrowful place, paralyzed by disbelief, numbed by the shock, and drained of tears. To make matters worse, he is not able to make phone calls. And because of COVID, his family cannot visit. He is in a prison hospital with no way to connect to any of us as he faces the reality of less than a year to live. When his mother learned of the news, she collapsed, and when she came to, she choked on her tears. His mother, once again, crying for her son, but this time, not able to hold him. 

I have never asked why. I don’t care why. I just know what is. I grappled with this while stuck in the quicksand of anguish. But in my love for him, I felt like I could not stay here. I am not the one with a terminal illness. This man who I love so much and cherish as a best friend is alone. I have to turn my pain into action on behalf of this man for whatever is left of his time on Earth.

Having spent days in paralysis, I finally decided to move. I am prepared to move mountains for Vu. I spent the last two weeks researching medical information on the illness and legal options that might be available to him. Things don’t look good, but there’s always a way to find a glimmer of hope. That’s who I am, an eternal optimist looking for ways to find love and support and encouragement in the bleakest of times.

This is why I need your help. His family and I found an option for a medical furlough through a process called writ of habeas corpus based on his medical condition. It’s rarely used because it’s rarely granted. But we have a team of attorneys who specialize in this, and they think we have a chance. I go by my gut but also by the facts. Based on both, I believe there’s a chance, too. I’m hoping the judge will have compassion for a man who is dying from an aggressive cancer and undergoing chemotherapy in prison also makes him very at risk if he contracts COVID-19. His unit is a documented epicenter of the virus. It is our argument for a medical furlough.

This medical request through legal compassion will cost $40,000 to prepare and file the writ. There are additional costs of investigators, transcripts, scientific tests, travel for the attorneys, and an expert witness who specializes in pancreatic cancer to review his file and affirm the state of his condition. I do not want him to die, but the truth is this cancer is a killer. There is no way out of this prognosis. I accept that. But we have to try this legal writ because I do not want him to die alone in prison. Until there is no way left, I cannot accept it just yet.

This will probably be my last act of Love for him. We are going up against a system that has torn his life apart, torn his family’s hearts apart, and torn us down to the seam, but I am hanging on to even the last single thread because it is what I have to do for someone I love.

Will you help me in this journey? Will you be part of this act of Love for a man who has shown me what Love truly is? A man who has taught me how to love and accept myself. A man who has been beaten by the system but has never let his beautiful spirit succumb to its horror. A man who has overcome his own inner darkness to provide light for others.

With the support and blessing of the family, I have signed the legal services agreement with the attorneys. The process will take 90-120 days, hopefully. If we can bring him home, even for a few months, so he can live out his days with his loved ones instead of dying in prison, that would be a priceless gift. And if it doesn’t get approved, if the judge denies the request, then I will accept that outcome. If that is the eventual outcome, at least this attempt provides a him a sense of dignity and humanity. An inmate facing an aggressive terminal illness should not have to feel alone and unsupported. I hope you’ll be able to support him. You can support in these ways:

His full name is Hoang Vu Tran. Keep him in your thoughts, prayers, and meditations. Positive and healing energies are a powerful collective force when we truly express them.

If you would like to write him messages of compassion, of love, of care, of goodwill, please leave it in the comments and we’ll pass them on to him.

Support us financially for his legal and medical journey. You can donate through:

Venmo @Love4HVT

Zelle @thao.l.ha@gmail.com (if you get an unregistered message, try my cell 760-580-5904, thank you 🙏)

GoFundMe here

If you would like to keep up with our journey, please subscribe to the blog. Click the “Follow+” at the bottom right corner of this page. I’ll be sharing updates here as we go alongside Vu in his legal and medical journey.

Any funds left after he is gone will be donated to http://www.pancan.org

On behalf of his family, I thank you for reading. I thank you for caring. I thank you for any support you can provide. Most of all, I thank you for loving. Love is all there is and all we can hope for when we close our eyes and say good-bye. My wish for him is to feel in his heart that he is loved. Because that is what he has done for me. In his essay, he writes about leaving prison someday, “To be honest, anywhere is better than to live without hope and the feel of sunshine on my face.” And to that, I’ll end with a quote because Vu loves famous quotes, “To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides” – D. Viscott.