“THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY”

It was an “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.” Though it is the day after, the reverberated pang and sting has not left me completely. I “know” God’s tender and loving mercies are new every morning, but I have not fully embraced God’s mercies due to my ego refusing to accept the failure from yesterday. The fact that I can smile like “man-cub” Mowgli (in The Jungle Book) with his signature smile with one side of his lip tilted upward today is perhaps enough of consolation. I tried to laugh it off yesterday, but it was the unnatural, weird, and sulky kind. And I knew it.

We (missionary friends, their two girls, and us) had planned to go to Danang, Vietnam for a short get away over the weekend. Vietnam was on my radar for quite some time, mostly for gastronomic reasons, thanks to numerous travels shows. We would also celebrate our friend’s birthday in Vietnam. I had reserved the hotel and they booked the air tickets. They carry Korean passports and have been working in Malaysia for more than two decades.

We cleared out of our Airbnb with ease, having packed our luggage the night before. As my wife never wants to do anything last minute, we have been ready to finally go to Vietnam. There was one hurdle, my laptop. I had to drop my laptop off at a repair shop for it was not charging. Flustered, I grumbled why today. I also knew without my laptop; it would break my rhythm of writing.

After my laptop was dropped off, we hurriedly went to the airport. At the departure counter, I was told that I needed to get visa to enter Vietnam. My eyes got widened firstly out of disbelief. I googled to find out that one can either get the visa prior or apply for visa on arrival in country. I showed the agent what I found. She took a picture of it and called her supervisor. In the meantime, I am scrambling to apply for a visa online and experiencing all kinds of problems with WIFI and technicalities of different versions of explanations. Shortly after, we were told that visa on arrival was no more in effect and that we could not fly without having received a visa. As we were getting closer to the boarding time, we told the other couple that they should go without us. We would stay back to secure our visa and possibly join them later in the night or tomorrow.

I discovered the Embassy of Vietnam open at 2 pm (They open only 2 days out of the week) so naturally one more reason to remain positive. Since the embassy is near the KL center, we had to back track to go into the downtown, using express train, subway, and Grab taxi, which is more than an hour ordeal. By the time we got to the embassy, it was past 2 pm, thinking and assuming all along we could still get the visa and join the other couple. I mean we were going to Vietnam to spend money and do R & R and promote how wonderful Vietnam was. What country would not accept tourists!

After dutifully filling out the visa application and paying outrageous amount for passport-sized photos from an opportunistic vendor just outside the embassy, we were told that the earliest turnaround time would be about 5 days (3 working days). The embassy worker’s answer was so plain and simple and even kind that a five-year-old could understand. But somehow, I could not process their policy through my crumbling frame of mind. Looking back, it must have taken half an hour to finally sink in. . .

Now, I was faced with a brand-new problem. We were homeless. We needed a place to stay for the next four nights. After communicating with the couple who had just landed in Danang about how sorry, disappointed, and disheartened we were. I was finally able to shift my focus from going to Vietnam at all costs to now deciding on where we would stay. We decided to use our hotel points to stay at KL Chinatown and do our own short city getaway.

During the travel to the embassy while there was still raging hope in my mind, I thought and muttered unkind words to myself, blaming me for the whole fiasco, and with very good reasons. This was one perfect opportunity to blast myself. Since I fanned the flame in going to Vietnam in the first place to the other couple, I naturally felt responsible. (They were extremely gracious the whole time.) What drove me more than anything else was not to disappoint them. I was willing to pay an arm and a leg to show up in Vietnam. My wife later kindly pointed out that I was cutting in front of others while walking to the embassy and simply inconsiderate almost like a madman or a very focused man. I accepted her correction because I knew that was what I was doing. My “love” for the couple somehow became worthy enough reason to justify my inconsiderate and childish behaviors to strangers. I had failed to love strangers in trying to love my friends.

When love is love, love is to all and for all. No one is excluded. No one person or group of people is a means to loving a few in the end. Love must include all the means and all the ends. Love cannot be an isolated love only to a few while ignoring or making the rest irrelevant or obsolete, and thus failing to love. Deeper still, God cannot be the end or the object of our love by hating or loving less of some people. That love for God would be blasphemous and hypocritical because we have not loved as God would love along the way. On yet another layer, I cannot love God by hating or loving less of myself. That would be a rejection of God’s unconditional love for my soul. Loving God, loving myself, and loving others are all interconnected and interdependent, needing all three loves toward union with God.

Though it was one of the most terrible, horrible, no good very bad day, I had learned an unforgettable lesson, making yesterday an unforgettable day.