Word of the Moment (Sojourn)

 

Sojourn [n. soh-jurn; v. soh-jurn, soh-jurn] | 

noun | 1. a temporary stay:  during his sojourn in Paris.

verb | 2. to stay for a time in a place; live temporarily:  to sojourn on the Riviera for two months.

My dad regularly expresses, "Tạm kỵ cư," which roughly translates to "temporary home" or sojourn.  The essence and demeanor when he expresses this saying in Vietnamese alludes to the ephemeral nature of life and that we are all just taking a temporary stop in this world on our journey of being.  Life, itself, is a sojourn rather than the sojourns in life.  It is cliché to say, "Life is short," but that truth can quickly be forgotten.  Indeed, life can be short-lived... and that thought has been a notion that passed my mind much in recent years. 

On passing (somewhere in 2014), out of the blue, my dad said, "Ba có cỡ mười năm nữa thôi.  Ba mong rằng ba có thể thấy được ngày con thành thân..." (I have a good ten years left.  I hope that I will see the day you get married...)  No pressure, huh?  Beyond the nuptial reference, there was no tinge of melancholy or the notion of holding on.  It simply is... Dad is a person cloaked with serenity.  The thought of his own death doesn't bother him; just the mere acceptance of the natural course of life.  He just turned 76... and from his era, living to 70 meant that Thọ (Longevity – one of the three magi in Chinese mythology) has blessed you.  For my dad, the fact that he is beyond that threshold is a blessing surpassing his expectations. 

Life is fleeting... enjoy it, embrace it... for it may just be a sojourn.

"Đời người như một cơn gió, tới rồi; trước khi mình biết, đã thoáng qua." ~ Hưng La (Life is like the wind's breeze, it comes and before you know it, gone.)

"Man’s days are like those of grass;

like a flower of the field he blooms;

The wind sweeps over him and he is gone, and his place knows him no more."

~Psalm 103:15-16