My mom’s arms race to leave a legacy
What to do with our souvenirs, collections, the small and great history?
My mum is turning 83 and in our video calls she seems increasingly frail. I worry. But the only thing she can think of is that I finish translating into French the memoirs she wrote about her years as president and member of the Association of Lao Women in France (AFLF): forty years of commitment to support the Lao community to thrive in the host country and maintain their Lao identity. “Hurry up! you’ve got to finish the translation; I am not sure how long I have left”.
She records in her small notebook ‘calepin’ the days I call, the time we spent together. “Do you know when was the last time we worked on this? “March… this was three months ago”. There is more regret than reproach in her accounting. I share the screen, I laboriously decipher her prose, my Lao is not so good, I Google translate, she reads again, and I correct the AI generated text. “How long did we spend on this session?” “Less than 30 minutes, mom”. That’s not a lot, but it seems to ease her anxiety. Until next time.
She is also sending me scans of documents, one page after another, one inverse, one reverse. Nothing is numbered, I have no clue of what comes first or second, if there are pages missing. These are documents from Grandfather Bong Souvannavong, his conferences notes, his political manifesto, his party’s newsletters. Then come these Lao poems that the AFLF wrote for the dance shows that she wants me to translate. I see suddenly 20 messages a-la-queue-leu-leu: ‘poem of the lotus flower’… ‘poem about the Lao flag’. I don’t know what to do with all of these. I let them sit in the thread for weeks, sometimes I download in a folder in no particular order, incomplete. I don’t have the original documents so I can’t crosscheck the missing pages.
She is resigned: “I know you are busy with work, you are traveling, don’t worry about this, take care of your work and yourself”. Then I am swimming in guilt. It’s not so much about work but blocking a time to talk to her, a protected period in my calendar, where I can spend those 30 minutes ranting about Lao language. There seems to be always that meeting to attend, this report to read, a call to give. There is something negligent, cavalier about our way of living. We know someone we love will bow out soon but we are incapable to see the urgency, to give her priority.
She gets helps from her grandchildren, from my sister and brother-in-law too. They teach her how to scan, name a document, select a folder to save. Then they go on with their own life, as I do. She has written down in her small notebook the steps, she tries on her own, scan and send what she can, it’s a mess with the passwords and usernames. “What? you don’t know how to manage a Cloud? How about Quantum Physics?”. She is stubborn and goes ahead, she is insistent, nags everyone. We grow impatient. She thinks: “I am gone soon, I’ve got to finish this”. We think: not now. We, the ungrateful.
When my father passed away, she thought she had no reason to live anymore. They have been together for five decades, her days were rhymed by their joint activities. They did everything together: the insouciance of their gilded youth, the war, the exile, the refugee life at the bottom of the French society’s ladder. how could she outlive him, what will she do? She threw her despair in writing the commemorative book about “Ky Siphrachanh Sisombat (1039-2016)”, selecting photos of their life, writing up the text.
She found herself busy arguing with the printer about the layout, choosing the paper quality and ensuring the book will honor her late husband. This helped her heal. After the commemorative book, she embarked on writing her memoirs as the president of the Association of Lao Women in France. She narrates the struggles of Lao refugees landing in France, the challenges of maintaining Lao identity and the art of mobilizing everyone to organize cultural shows. The second book was printed in 2020. Stranded in Vientiane during the year when the world stopped, she tried to gather her father Bong's writings from her relatives.
Back in France in 2023, she embarks on her father Bong’s legacy. What to do with all these historical documents, his speeches, his political programs? And these poems written during the 40 years of the AFLF? And the songs we recorded? It's not just about things of the past, she throws out new ideas like a dream machine.
She recently told me about this guide to teaching the new generation about the culture and history of Laos. I sweep my hands energetically in the air, "No, no, no, mom! there's ChatGPT. Just ask questions and the answers come in seconds!”. She is not discouraged by my objection and bounces back on my idea. She asks me to show what AI is – which she has never heard of – and invites me to organize a working session with young people. "No, no, no, mom."
She is infinite in the things she wants to package and get out of her way before she passes away. I help her refresh her blog https://tounkys.wordpress.com/ that she created to explain the Souvannavong family tree. I change the description to the narrative, that of a Lao woman, tossed about by History with a capital H, who lived with her contradictions, her struggles, her commitment to the Lao of France, her family too: "Toun Souvannavong's blog, memory of a Lao woman". History with a small "h". She will be able to save her writings there and maybe one day, stir the interest of a young researcher.
We find it difficult to keep up with our parents, our elders. We believe that they are eternal and that there will always be time to talk to them, to revisit their collections, their papers, their memories. Sometimes they are things that have historical or cultural value: old books, stamps and coins; woven bamboo basketry, a collection of textiles. Sometimes these are their hobbies: cookbooks, collection of cheese boxes and labels... To whom should all this be transmitted?
I understood one thing with my five zodiac cycles: for a passing generation, only one or two people will care about the past. My mother; perhaps my sister and myself; maybe my daughter. The best thing we can do for this memory keeper is to tidy up, to choose what to throw away, what to keep, like my mother does now. But she doesn't throw away much.
Already, in agreement with my sister and mother, I contacted universities and research centers for Grandpa Bong's writings. For old books and collections, it's not very clear who might still be interested. Even Emmaus and the Secours Catholique refuse them. The flea market in Paris Saint Ouen is no longer what it used to be and the old book dealers of the 5th arrondissement of Paris have all disappeared. For our hobbies, we have to accept the fact that our children will not be interested. We have to go through the painful process of kondo-ing our life.
For our life memories, we have to write, upload the documents in the Cloud and leave them there: a lone researcher interested in Asian studies might find them, one day, until the data centers – an environmental disaster – shut down as well.
And you, what do you do with the memories of your elders, of your community? What do you do with your memories? Talk to your loved ones, reach out.