-^-for posterity-^-

in my english literature class we often deal with mortality.

we talk candidly about death and the after life. people here aren't christian so there isn't any basic cultural assumption of what happens to you if you die. people don't initially say you go to heave or hell nor do they have any concise understanding of what either place is. may people who believe in god (many students are firm atheists) still don't believe in an afterlife. many believe that people are punished here on earth. many of them focus on the cycle of life and how death is an inevitable part of it.

we were all taking a break from class this morning and i was talking to a girl i don't normally talk to. we were standing outside in the blazing morning sun. she was eating a sandwich.

she always hides behind large glasses but is usually smiling. she doesn't say much in class but routinely participates. i asked her how she was doing. she replied, 'so-so.'

normally i try to follow up an answer to 'how are you' with some other probing questions. i want the students to practice a bit of their english and come up with a reason for feeling wonderful, tired or just so-so. she looked down at the ground, bit her sandwich and looked really hurt. i wondered if i had made a mistake in asking her the question so i tried to think of something else to say.

'i went home last weekend.'

i didn't understand why that would make someone so sad here. normally the family is the most important part of someone's life. the students who go to school even thirty kilometers away from home talk about how far it is and how they never see their family. i've had students who live outside of long xuyen and have to live on campus come up to me and said they could sympathise with me for living so far away from home. going home is a joyous event.

'oh, and how is your family?'

there it was. it was an invisible land mine in the conversation that i could not avoid. i couldn't even see it. it was a booby-trap placed in a dense jungle. i walked right into it and the next thing i knew, there was a flash and i was missing two legs.

'my father died.'

there it was. she looked away, broke off part of her sandwich and gave it to me. i don't know why she gave me a part of her sandwich but i ate it. she looked back up and here eyes were red. i didn't know what to say. i didn't know how to act. i'm a teacher. she's a student. i'm a man. she's a woman. i do not have words to console someone who has experienced a loss of that magnitude. my stammering and stuttering and attempts at sincerity would have been lost in a cultural divide. i wanted to give her a hug but that would have been terrible. i wanted to tell her something, anything.

'wow. that must be hard.'

then there was a moment that couldn't have been more than twenty seconds but was one of those famed moments that last for a distressing amount of time in your mind. they hang, they don't move. your mind races and there is no answer even though the clock is ticking. i should say something. i should do something. i should have seen where i was going and avoided this topic.

'it's ok. my older sister and my mother really love me.'

and with that, the bell rang and class began again. she walked inside, sat down. i walked inside, taught. it was over. i couldn't teach well, not because i was choked up, just because all the talk about death and the afterlife doesn't really matter to us poor souls who still inhabit earth. all i teach is speculation. her pain was real.