Caregiving and the Art of Presence

In this tender, honest memoir spanning the last decade of her mother's life, a Vietnamese American Zen teacher shares the deep challenges, unexpected gifts, and pathways through the overwhelming exhaustion and isolation of caregiving with the practice of presence and mindfulness. Ordaining as a Buddhist nun right after university, the author set out to cultivate peace and study and practice mindfulness under the tutelage of war refugee and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. When the health of her beloved mother, Ma, begins to decline, she is confronted with the challenge of applying Zen teachings on compassion and equanimity to real life. Through caring for Ma, a widow who had taken her five small children on a rickety boat onto the open seas to seek refuge from the war in Vietnam-and gone on to raise them in America alone-Sister Tue Nghiem discovers insights on healing from the long-term effects of war on the human family, as well as on her own mind and body. Drawing on her lifetime of mindfulness practice and the ancestral wisdom of Zen, she explores how a caregiver can remain grounded, compassionate, and free while navigating the emotional weight of a parent's declining health. Through the author's journey with her mother-alongside her brother and niece, also monastics-she reveals how developing the art of presence and mindfulness can be the keys to provide connection, clarity, and peace, even in the most difficult moments of caregiving.