Dang Giao & Thuy Phan/Nguoi Viet
WESTMINSTER, Calif.– If you’ve ever walked through the Peek Family Cemetery, located at 14801 Beach Blvd. in Westminster, chances are you’ve seen Kelvin Luc Le’s grave. Adorned with two mini Christmas trees, lights, a white picket fence and a candy striped light pole, it’s one of the most unique grave sites in the cemetery.
“Kevin’s grave is an extension of our home,” said Kelvin’s father, Tuan Minh Le, adding, “we come by every day to sit with him.”
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Tassy Luc, left, and her husband Tuan Minh Le, right, stand next to their son Kelvin’s grave located inside the Peek Family Cemetery located in Westminster at 14801 Beach Blvd. (Photo: Dang Giao/Nguoi Viet)
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Le, 45, and his wife Tassy Luc, lost their son Kelvin five years ago when the teen was 18-years-old. At age 14, Kelvin began having seizures that would leave him frozen in place or passed out for 30 seconds at a time. Doctors were baffled and unable to pinpoint the root cause. Kelvin was prescribed medicine to manage the seizures but on Jan. 1, 2010, his parents woke up to find he had passed away in his sleep.
“That first year after we lost Kelvin, I was devastated with grief and couldn’t work, or do anything,” said Le, a resident of Santa Ana. “All I did was camp out at his grave.”
Le recalls being filled with sadness for that first year and said he felt as though he had lost everything. However, as time passed and he began to heal, Le said he had an epiphany.
“I couldn’t be sad anymore because as a Buddhist, I believe in the afterlife,” said Le, “and I didn’t want Kelvin to look down and see me sad, because that would make him sad. So that’s when I decided to live life a little differently and try to be happy, because it’s what he would have wanted.”
That meant doing and living life the way his young son did– with love, generosity, affection and friendship.
“When I think of Kelvin, he is always 10 years-old in my mind,” said Le. “Soft-spoken. Deep dimples. It’s how I remember him even though he was 18-years-old when he passed.”
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Tuan Minh Le, 45, has a likeness of his son Kelvin’s portrait tattooed to his arm. (Photo: Dang Giao/Nguoi Viet)
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Along with his wife, Le set about transforming their son’s grave into a personal space that represented who Kelvin was and to make it a place of celebration, rather than sadness.
Although families are not allowed to decorate until Dec. 15 for the holidays, Le gets to it right after Thanksgiving. Even though gardeners sometimes take down his decorations and store it in sheds, Le just collects it again or replaces whatever he needs to make the decorations feel complete.
“After we started decorating our son’s grave with lights and other Christmas objects, people started following suit,” Le said. “Now a lot of families set up lights and it is a bit of a village.”
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The grave is decorated with lights, christnas trees, signs and other knicknacks for the holidays. (Photo: Dang Giao/Nguoi Viet)
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In addition, they’ve also brought out an MP3 player with a playlist of all of Kelvin’s favorite songs, which plays on repeat 24/7. For holidays such as Tet or Christmas, they’ll add songs to reflect the season.
Tuan and his wife are so dedicated, they haven’t taken a vacation since Kelvin died, because they don’t want to miss coming out to visit his grave.
Having gone through immense grief, Le offers this nugget of advice that took him years to figure out.
“True happiness is when you go home and see your kids all around you,” Le said. “Every day that you don’t appreciate that simple and true joy is a day wasted.”
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