A Piece of Land

Family to me was like a tree. The branches were family members, and we helped the other branches and made the tree flourish. That was my notion of what makes a family. It was naive and simple; a healthy tree is a happy family. But I forgot that there are different factors that affect the healthiness of a tree. Four year ago, we became a dying tree waiting for the branches to grow back, but it seemed impossible. It happened when I was sixteen. My family took a trip to my father's hometown in Vietnam to visit my relatives and my grandmother. During the stay, my grandmother mentioned a piece of land. Then conflict took place when we seemed to disagree with each other opinions. Some wanted to sell it, but some would rather keep it. We were talking with our hands and discussing using insults. Through this incident, I got to see my father's family in a different light which changed the way I define the word "family" and also taught me a valuable life lesson: money can change people.

“I have decided. We are going to visit dad’s family this summer.” my mother happily announced. I was excited about the upcoming trip that I knew it was going to be fantastic. As a tradition every summer we loved to go back to my father’s hometown as a way to show our appreciation toward our ancestors. My aunts and uncles welcomed us at the airport with the familiar blurred welcome line on a big piece of cardboard. It was a really hot summer day. My uncle's car was not "new" enough to have air conditioners, so I had no choice but to spend two hours to my hotel in a microwave. The next morning, my grandmother took us to the town graveyard where, as she always told us, my grandfather lay as a hero, a devoted teacher, and a good father. We burned incenses and cleaned up his grave, and also asked him for his blessing and protection. We then went to my favorite restaurant near the beach to have breakfast and talk about our lives. We enjoyed other stories and had some quality time together. But not all of us, I noticed my grandmother just watched us mindlessly, and sometimes she pretended to laugh as a way to hide the sadness in her eyes. She stood up quickly and accidentally bumped into the waiter above her head. We were scared if there was something wrong but the eighty-year-old woman slowly got up with a smile and walked out toward the beach.

“She is old, it happens all the time.” one of my uncles said.

We took her home and stayed for a while to make sure she was fine. After placing the kettle on the stove, she slowly approached us and used her left-hand hold tightly to her favorite rocking chair bar seat. She sat down with a big sigh. She pulled out a stack of papers from the old brown closet next to her chair. She cleared her throat loudly to catch our attention. She gave us the stack of papers and started talking about a piece of land next to her house. Grandmother planned to gift us that land. Without hesitation, both of my aunts agreed we should sell it right now and split the money evenly. In contrast, my mother wanted to build up a house as a place for us to gather every summer. Grandmother seemed to agree with her, as she lightly knocked her head and giggled on her own like a five-year-old kid. Suddenly one of my aunts angrily stood up and pointed her finger at my mother saying that my parents needed to stop using money to "buy" grandmother's favor. I was startled as my mother roughly grabbed my