Incense Sweetens the Air
The news arrived suddenly in a terse, one-sentence email from Roli: “We are going to a viewing tonight and a funeral tomorrow.”
“Who died?” I asked when I called his office immediately after.
“Young’s wife,” he replied in a hurried tone, mimicking the brevity of his message. I had caught him in the middle of a meeting.
I remembered Young arriving at our house in overalls, a tool vest, and rolls of cable slung over his shoulder, coming to work on our home and business computers. In time, we became fast friends. When he married his childhood sweetheart in Vietnam, he talked about her constantly—proud of her beauty and her prowess in the kitchen.
He formally introduced her to us by bringing over a large tray of her homemade Vietnamese spring rolls. She was exquisite—small-boned, fair-skinned, and gracefully tall. Though she spoke very little English, her warm presence charmed her way into our hearts.
In time, they had a son, who is now eight years old. Then cancer came, silently and swiftly, claiming her at just 34. Her name, Trinh, means “pure” in English.
That evening, the sweetish aroma of burning incense wafted through the doorway of the funeral home in San Jose. Trinh lay in repose behind a Buddhist altar, surrounded by wreaths of yellow and white flowers and the rhythmic chanting of monks. Her grieving husband stood beside her casket, a white band wrapped around his shaven head. In keeping with tradition, his head will remain shaven, and he will eat only vegan meals for the coming months of mourning.
“We are deeply sorry,” Roli and I murmured as we handed him three white envelopes containing prayer cards—one each from us, our daughter Erica, and our son Leo. Knowing they contained monetary gifts to assist the family, Young politely declined. He explained that it was Trinh’s final wish to stop accepting financial help, as so many people had already given generously during her battle with the illness.
Instead, he gestured for us to take two joss sticks each, light them, say a quiet prayer, and place them into a bowl of rice grains—one before the image of the Buddha, and the other before her photograph.
The funeral procession to the crematorium the next day was brief. The vibrant orange robes of the monks stood out against the sea of mourners dressed in black—a modern adaptation, I imagined, of the traditional Vietnamese Buddhist custom where mourners wear white. As the prayer chants mingled with soft, sorrowful weeping, we turned our eyes away as the cremation chamber door was closed.
The sweet, heavy scent of burning incense will forever etch the memory of Trinh into my heart and mind.
