Neighbors couldn’t stop crying when they realized why he sleeps with his wife’s corpse for 16 years

Neighbors couldn't stop crying when they realized why he sleeps with his wife's corpse for 16 years. Experts have said that romantic love is one of the most powerful emotions a person can have. Human brains have been wired to choose a mate, and we humans become motivated to win over that mate, sometimes going to extremes to get their attention and affection. Ultimately, I believe everyone wants to love and be loved, no matter what other elements we have in our lives. We seek love consciously or subconsciously above everything else. Once we have that love, a person to share our lives with, we feel complete. What else do we fight so hard for? What else do we risk our sanity for? What else gives us so much happiness? What else makes us whole? Not the hundred thousand dollar job, not the mansion or the flashy car—just love.

It's never easy to deal with the loss of a loved one, but unfortunately, that's part of life. When that happens, we need to accept that the person is gone, and there's nothing we can do about it. It's the instrument that made sound to fill all things, and within its frequency, all things became well. The amazement took shape, and all things stemmed from the power inside the shell of love. Love has the power to move mountains and still the calm of the water's face, to allow the ripples to glisten in the silent reflection from the light of the moon. Hearing the faith of a mustard seed, it moved a mountain into the sea. It made the sheep lie down with the lion. It took the heart of you and gave it to me to cherish, to wake you in pleasures unknown and fill your life to no want.

Why is love so amazing and powerful? Because it is where it belongs. This powerful feeling changed into a hard situation when grieving the loss of a beloved one, as this man grieving can take a toll on your body as well as your emotions. You may have no appetite or have trouble sleeping, but apparently, some people fail to understand this, like this Vietnamese man unable to cope with the loss of his wife. This man decided to dig up the woman's remains and place them inside a plaster sculpture. After that, he's been sleeping in the same bed as her for over 16 years.

It all started in 2004. At the time, everyone believed that this shocking story was just a scam, but in the case of Lee Van, the story's true, and he did just that. Despite opposition from family and friends, he continues sharing his bed with his wife's remains and has no plans to stop doing it anytime soon.

Mr. Lee Van, in Halam Town, Tang Bin District of the central province of Guangnam, and his wife Femthy Suang did not love each other, but they still got married. Their parents were close neighbors, and they promised to match the children when the kids grew up. The couple fell in love after their marriage, and they lived in happiness. They were carpenters and a well-off family, but then Van got involved in illegal lotto, so their economic status went downhill. However, their love remained. Van did not let his wife work hard. "They have seven children," a neighbor said. Because of difficulties, Van had to sell his spacious house to build a smaller one. He also quit carpentry to become a rock exploiter, while his wife made incenses every day.

Mr. Van changes clothes for his wife. Though Lee Van's story is not new, many are still curious about the reason that a man dug up his wife's grave to take the remains home with himself, against the prevention of his neighbors and the local authorities. Why a healthy man has that odd behavior? Has the dead wife been buried again?

Reporters met Lee Van again to find out the answers, asking Van why he brought his dead wife home. He said, "At that time, February 2003, I was working in the central highlands when my family called to inform me of my wife's death. I went home immediately and tried to stop people burying my wife. Someone said I was crazy and if the dead is not buried, her soul will not be saved, so I let them do whatever they want."

One year later, in a rainy evening, I went to the cemetery alone to dig up my wife's corpse. I put the remains in a bag, afraid of being detected. I dug a small hole, put her in, and filled it. Since then, he could not sleep at night, thinking of how to bring his dead wife home. He bought plaster, cement, sand, and glue and stayed in the cemetery for days to make a statue of his wife. Then he put her remains into the statue. Van and his son have slept with the corpse for 10 years. "After two months, I successfully rescued my wife. My children were so surprised when I brought the statue home. At first, they only thought that since I missed her so much, so I made her statue. When I told them the truth, they were panicked," Van recalled.

The children thought he joked, but he took them to the cemetery and showed them the empty coffin with only a torn blanket inside. They were stunned. They tried to persuade Van to bury their mother again, while Van's relatives criticized him for going against customs and ethics. However, he didn't care and insisted that his wife was still alive. Lee Van's story has shaken the local and foreign media.

Mr. Tran Trung San, chair of the town of Halam, said, "In 2005, the local government received people's complaints of Van's case. Local residents expressed their worry of environmental pollution and the social impacts. The local authorities asked Van to bury his wife again, and the man agreed. But some time later, local people continue to complain that Van still held the remains in the house. 'We've done all the way, but with the conservative nature and bigotry of Mr. Van, the incident has not been solved yet,' said San."

Van has been living with his dead wife's remains for nearly 10 years, despite other people's views. He sometimes drops at groceries to purchase cosmetics. At first, people thought he bought cosmetics for his daughters, but it turned out that the cosmetics are for his dead wife. He bought lipsticks and face powder to make up the statue. He also cleans the statue every day. He said he's responsible to beautify his wife. "Let's see, my wife is as beautiful as famous beauty queens and models. Her beauty can even be compared to Lady Cow of Nagayandu," he said. Cow is a beautiful woman in the world-famous work, "The Tales of Cow," by the great poet Nagayan Do in the 18th to 19th century. Van also bought clothes to make clothes for the statue. "When my wife was alive, she never wore a nice dress, so now I have to make many nice clothes for her. I change clothes for her twice a day. People said I'm crazy because I take care of a corpse, but I strongly believe that she's always with me. I'll definitely sleep with her dead body until I die," he confirmed.

They claimed the man was spreading disease throughout the region. The police even tried to convince him to return the body to the cemetery, but he refused to. Neighbors didn't visit his house for years after learning about the case, and some even alerted authorities. People gave up after repeatedly trying to convince him to rebury the body.

Think of it as two ends of a string. On one end is love, and the other is fear. They're not separate but connected, and we appear to swing between these two ends. This is our concept of love. This love is wonderful and sees only the beauty and the objects around us but is easily lost as we swing to the other end. Remember that feeling when you were walking on the clouds, breathing in the sunshine, kissing nature, feeling invincible? That's its true power. It gives you a temporary glimpse of your true nature, which is, again, love. Love makes our ego disappear and assumes control, although temporarily.

For most, the ego is a limited version of yourself that arises from fear and tries its best to exist as long as it can, and most of us stay on the fear side of the string. But as you turn your attention inwards, you start swinging more often to the love side of the string. The love that is our true nature is not a concept. It cannot be contained in a concept. It cannot be imagined, divided, measured, or lost. It cannot be compared to anything else and does not have an opposite. It's pointless trying to describe that in words.

The human concept of love is indeed powerful and can become our guiding star to our true nature. It can help us remember we just forgot, just like we don't remember the air around us, but it's always there surrounding us and available to us at every moment. So is love. Love can help us transcend the ego. Nothing, as you go more into love, can appear to feel pain. It can feel confusing because we're not used to being loved so much that it hurts. Keep going deeper and deeper until your love starts to become unconditional, and you will eventually dissolve into love, and you will become love.

It seems like an impossible task and appears to be really hard, but there's really nothing that's more important. The pain you feel is because you loved someone. You gave enough of your soul to them in love that you're wounded beyond what you can imagine. Healing, the only healing path, is to stop hating life, forgive the universe, and start building love back into your life. Unless you choose to heal, you'll remain broken, hollow, and empty. Some will never heal, some will want to heal but not find the strength, and those who heal will be better in life than those who don't. By healing, you will not forget the loved one you lost. You'll still feel the pain of loss, but you'll become strong enough to carry that loss with grace through the rest of your life.

How would your lost loved one want you to grieve their loss? How would they want you to damage your life because they died? Follow the path through grief that your lost loved one would choose for you. Explore the pain to better understand what part of love your soul misses the most. These are the ones you need to start finding again. You can do this. It's like climbing a mountain. You do it one small step at a time, and as you approach the peak, your view becomes clear and beautiful, and the effort and pain fade away. Be well. Choose to heal. Your soul knows how to love and will lead you back to life if you allow it to. Do not let someone else tell you how you should be feeling or that you need to get over this. And my personal favorite, just let them go. Everyone's relationships are different. They have different intensity emotionally. I understand how weird this man dealing with his wife's death is.