After my moth­er’s fu­neral, my fa­ther and I had promised each other a trip to the “Field of Voiceless Flowers” as a means to re­con­nect with one an­other and mourn mom’s death.

My fa­ther was the UN’s eco­nomic con­sul­tant for un­der­de­vel­oped coun­tries, so his work took him to a lot of ig­nored places in the world. He loved his jobs since it al­lowed him to lis­ten to sto­ries that oth­er­wise would have never left a vil­lage no one’s ever heard of. He would tell me those sto­ries dur­ing the short months be­tween trips. The one that res­onated with me the most was about the “Field of Voiceless Flowers”.

During the Vietnam War, there was a sup­ply route in Laos that was ideal for ve­hi­cle trans­porta­tion, nat­u­rally, the American’s im­me­di­ate re­ac­tion was to na­palm it, gain vi­sion over the route and bomb it when­ever some­one drove through it. This route was nick­named “5th Ave” since it was “one way only”.  As the war pro­gressed and the bat­tle­front shifted over and that de­for­ested area be­came an ideal route to move US troops across. The Vietcong were no fools they made sure to po­si­tion them­selves so that the ideal route for the Americans to take was “5th Ave”. One morn­ing 300 Men walked into “5th Ave” think­ing it was an­other hike, it was rid­dled with hun­dreds of land­mines. 50 had died by sun­set. Panicking troops lead to a chain re­ac­tion of mines. They were stuck not know­ing if they were at the edge of mine­fields or the dead cen­ter. A he­li­copter evac­u­a­tion was not pos­si­ble since they could­n’t se­cure a land­ing zone. The wounded could­n’t be car­ried out and the rest we shack­led by fear. Most of the wounded died slowly un­able to re­ceive treat­ment. Desperate men ran across the field, many of them suc­cess­ful on their run, but some turned to pools of blood. It took the army 3 days to get all the troops out. A lot of bod­ies were left there.

Decades af­ter the war ended my fa­ther went out to “5th Ave” for ground­work on mine dis­cov­ery and dis­posal. The lo­cals took him to the “Field of Voiceless Flowers”. Not re­ally “there” but at a vis­i­ble dis­tance down from a hill­side. Along miles of thick tree lines, there was a clear bor­der where the trees ended and a hoard of wild­flow­ers lit­tered the mine­field. It was called the “Field of Voiceless Flowers” since there was no one there to hear it and noth­ing there to make a sound. My fa­ther said it was the most well-com­posed view he had en­coun­tered in his years abroad. He used to dream a lot about tak­ing a stroll through the “Field of Voiceless Flower” but chuck­led that they turned to night­mares since he would wake up af­ter step­ping on a mine. Not the best story to tell an 11-year-old but it en­graved a mys­ti­cal scenery in my head.

During my anx­i­ety-rid­den teenage years, when I wanted a mo­ment of si­lence in my head I would imag­ine what it would be like to take a stroll across the “Field of Voiceless Flowers”. Under a clear blue sky, I em­braced every step I took on the dirt. Avoiding the flow­ers as much as pos­si­ble. Skeletons scat­tered along a thick path of wild­flow­ers. Step af­ter step I start to for­get there are mines hid­den un­der every flower root. I pace faster and faster un­til I’m run­ning, kick­ing flow­ers one bush af­ter an­other. I fly up in the air and watch as my body scat­ters over the mo­saic of col­ors. I close my eyes and imag­ine what col­ors my flesh will be once I rot and be­come one with the dirt. I usu­ally pon­der which body part would land on the floor first.

My mother was di­ag­nosed with can­cer when I had just turned 34. I was em­ployed by Google as a net­work en­gi­neer at their Japanese head­quar­ter. I picked up Bonsai gar­den­ing in my spare time. My fa­vorite part about grow­ing a bon­sai was that it was never com­plete since it al­ways kept on grow­ing. It was hard for me to leave my Bonsai plants to go care for mom with dad. I’d asked my land­lord, who had got­ten me into the hobby to take care of them while I was gone. Mother would die 3 weeks af­ter my re­turn. I went back to Japan the night af­ter the fu­neral.

At noon in Laos, half a year af­ter my moth­er’s fu­neral I and my fa­ther had climbed up the hill­side over­look­ing the “Field of Voiceless Flower” and set up for lunch. We had got­ten some chicken Ba Mihn from the nearby vil­lage. The vil­lagers were very happy to see my fa­ther since he had helped them set up a fruit busi­ness that al­lowed their chil­dren to go to school. I told him the vil­lagers are your Bonsai. He said, “yeah sure”. After we fin­ished our lunch, he jok­ingly said: “hey do you want to get a closer look?” I said why not.

After a week in Laos I re­turned to Japan, I had not an­tic­i­pated my ex­tended stay and many of my bon­sai were dead or had over­grown. I had to start a new vase.