Out of the 23 photos taken at my parents’s wedding in 1974, there wasn’t even a single photo of the bride and groom, or any other guest, by themselves - EXCEPT for this solo photo of a regal elderly woman who was speaking words of blessings at the podium.

And when I innocently asked my Mom who was the special guest, she opened an epic can of worm, a family tale of unspeakable tragedies and resilient triumphs, and I would expect nothing less from my bloodline and my people. I will try my best to summarize the saga:

- The woman on the podium was Mrs. Sóc. She was the wife of Elder Sóc. Elder Sóc was the 7th brother of my great-grandfather. (My great-grandfather’s story as the eldest son deserves a movie on its own, but I’ll tell that story another day).

- Elder and Mrs. Sóc were god-fearing and kind people, and they had 5 successful sons (2 of whom were doctors, this will be important later) and 2 beautiful daughters: Liễu and Hồng.

- Liễu and Hồng both married men who were very highly rank in the Southern Vietnamese regime, who had close knowledge of the regime’s secrets. Liễu’s husband was the famed Colonel Trần Khắc Kính. Hồng was married to Lt. Colonel Trần Khắc Nghiêm. They were brothers. This will be important later.

- When Saigon and the Southern regime fell in 1975, the Colonel and his brother were both sent to re-education camp, and released in 1985. Meanwhile, their wives, Liễu and Hồng, tried to escape Vietnam on a boat exodus in 1978, with hope of sponsoring their husbands later.

- TW: tragic story ahead. During the exodus journey, the flimsy fishing boat’s engine malfunctioned and the refugees were left stranded adrift at sea for weeks, starving to death one by one. Hồng was unfortunately one of them. In order to survive, the rest of the boat people had to commit cannibalism on the deceased, including Hồng. Liễu had to watch this horrific fate play out to her sister, and spiraled into deep, dark mental illness.

- Fortunately, once they were rescued and Liễu was reunited with her brothers in California, 2 of whom were doctors, the brothers helped treat her trauma and she eventually recovered her strength.

- A few years later, the 3rd brother, Thọ, opened a restaurant in Garden Grove, CA named Pho 79, which Liễu eventually took over to help with management, and then passed the restaurant chain down to their children. Pho 79 is now a James Beard Award winning restaurant chain in CA.

If you’ve been following my family’s stories on this page for a while, then you would find nothing surprising out of this extraordinary example of strength and resilience - not just from my family but from the Vietnamese people as a whole. We never wallowed in our misfortunes for too long, and we were able to rebuild from the ground up within 2 generations…from unimaginable circumstances to rising like phoenix from the ashes.

So when I tell you that SOMETHING will grow again, I’m not speaking of an imaginary dream in the sky. I’m pulling real life examples from our own family chronicles.