BIRTHDAYS and ANGELS
BIRTHDAYS
Her birthday this year falls on a Monday. Hanna, her sixth grandchild and fourth granddaughter, was baptized on Sunday, May 4, 1997, with her as godmother. So we simplified things by having just one cake for both celebrations. She received phone calls from her children living in five different states.
On Monday morning she received flowers from the daughter living in Connecticut. In the evening her youngest daughter living in Palo Alto took her to dinner and to the movies. She enjoyed that thoroughly. I know, because I tagged along for a free ride, a free meal, and free entertainment.
This is her thirty-eighth birthday since I first met her in Saigon. I plan to stick with her for at least thirty-two more years, though we are unlike in so many aspects.
She came from the Deep South of Vietnam; I am a foreign North Vietnamese.
My family of industrious ‘carpetbaggers’ came South as refugees in 1954 and spoke Vietnamese in a staccato manner; she is a Southern belle who went to French schools from childhood and had a perfect French accent, though her folks spoke Vietnamese with a drawl and dropped final consonants like nothing at all.
She is a southpaw; I am right-handed.
My Northern cooking uses lemon and fish sauce; her Southern cuisine calls for sugar and coconut milk.
She is sweet; I am sour.
My reticence sometimes made her siblings ill at ease, though I was unaware. Then she claimed that I was gauche and threatened to send me to an ‘obedience school,’ so that I would know how to treat my in-laws ‘comme il faut’.
She jogs and swims; I plod and sink.
I am a laid-back thinker, melting ‘Snow on the Mountain’; she is a headlong doer, blazing ‘Fire in the Lake.’
Her mythical bird is the Phoenix; my legendary beast is the Dragon.
I am the son of Mister Xuan-Nhat (Spring Sun); she is originally Miss Anh-Nguyet (Shiny Moon).
She is the daughter of Mister Van-Ho (Tiger) after whom the winds blow; I am aptly called Master Tran-Long (Dragon) that drags the clouds along.
I stand as a pine tree whispering in the rain forest; she lies as pure gold at the bottom of the sea.
She favors the directions of South and West; I prefer the North and the East.
My planets, Saturn and Jupiter, orbit far away from the Earth; her celestial bodies, Mars and Venus, revolve much closer to the Sun.
She prefers buying French and German fancy wheels; I would indifferently drive American or Japanese jalopies.
I entertain some socialistic advocacy with some zeal; she espouses the capitalistic system wholeheartedly.
She is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican; I register as an Independent with some leaning toward the Democrats.
I voted for Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton; she cast her ballots for Ronald Reagan and George Bush.
My litany is long. The contrasts are many. Once, years ago, I ribbed my Adam’s rib a little too much. She resented being rubbed the wrong way and suggested that I sign up for a sensitivity training course.
Yes, I am amazed at our long-lasting marriage.
Today Latin people of the Old and New Worlds, of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, are celebrating Cinco de Mayo. Unwittingly, in doing so, they celebrate my wife’s birthday.
Happy Birthday, Danielle.
Her birthday this year falls on a Monday. Hanna, her sixth grandchild and fourth granddaughter, was baptized on Sunday, May 4, 1997, with her as godmother. So we simplified things by having just one cake for both celebrations. She received phone calls from her children living in five different states.
On Monday morning she received flowers from the daughter living in Connecticut. In the evening her youngest daughter living in Palo Alto took her to dinner and to the movies. She enjoyed that thoroughly. I know, because I tagged along for a free ride, a free meal, and free entertainment.
This is her thirty-eighth birthday since I first met her in Saigon. I plan to stick with her for at least thirty-two more years, though we are unlike in so many aspects.
She came from the Deep South of Vietnam; I am a foreign North Vietnamese.
My family of industrious ‘carpetbaggers’ came South as refugees in 1954 and spoke Vietnamese in a staccato manner; she is a Southern belle who went to French schools from childhood and had a perfect French accent, though her folks spoke Vietnamese with a drawl and dropped final consonants like nothing at all.
She is a southpaw; I am right-handed.
My Northern cooking uses lemon and fish sauce; her Southern cuisine calls for sugar and coconut milk.
She is sweet; I am sour.
My reticence sometimes made her siblings ill at ease, though I was unaware. Then she claimed that I was gauche and threatened to send me to an ‘obedience school,’ so that I would know how to treat my in-laws ‘comme il faut’.
She jogs and swims; I plod and sink.
I am a laid-back thinker, melting ‘Snow on the Mountain’; she is a headlong doer, blazing ‘Fire in the Lake.’
Her mythical bird is the Phoenix; my legendary beast is the Dragon.
I am the son of Mister Xuan-Nhat (Spring Sun); she is originally Miss Anh-Nguyet (Shiny Moon).
She is the daughter of Mister Van-Ho (Tiger) after whom the winds blow; I am aptly called Master Tran-Long (Dragon) that drags the clouds along.
I stand as a pine tree whispering in the rain forest; she lies as pure gold at the bottom of the sea.
She favors the directions of South and West; I prefer the North and the East.
My planets, Saturn and Jupiter, orbit far away from the Earth; her celestial bodies, Mars and Venus, revolve much closer to the Sun.
She prefers buying French and German fancy wheels; I would indifferently drive American or Japanese jalopies.
I entertain some socialistic advocacy with some zeal; she espouses the capitalistic system wholeheartedly.
She is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican; I register as an Independent with some leaning toward the Democrats.
I voted for Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton; she cast her ballots for Ronald Reagan and George Bush.
My litany is long. The contrasts are many. Once, years ago, I ribbed my Adam’s rib a little too much. She resented being rubbed the wrong way and suggested that I sign up for a sensitivity training course.
Yes, I am amazed at our long-lasting marriage.
Today Latin people of the Old and New Worlds, of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, are celebrating Cinco de Mayo. Unwittingly, in doing so, they celebrate my wife’s birthday.
Happy Birthday, Danielle.
ANGELS
Paul Anton Bảo-Lân & Mary Joseph Diễm-Ngọc
Lá vàng còn
ở trên cây, Yellow
leaves remain on the trees,
Lá xanh rụng xuống! Trời hay chăng trời? Green leaves fall down! Heavens, are you aware?
Angels are spiritual beings who, in medieval angelology, were the lowest of the nine celestial orders -- seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominations, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels, and angels. But an angel can also be defined as a deceased person whose soul is regarded as having been accepted into heaven or a living person having qualities generally attributed to an angel, as beauty, purity, or kindliness.
In December 1946, the French-Vietnamese war erupted in Hanoi and Haiphong. I left the capital city to return to Phatdiem, my birthplace. The Vietnamese resistance under Ho chi Minh waged guerrilla warfare and practiced the scorched-earth policy of destroying property, crops, roads, bridges, dams, and anything else of benefit to the French advancing force. By April 1947 most of the cities or urban areas were occupied by the French armies, whereas the Vietnamese countryside was in the hands of Ho’s communist troops. In early May my parents provided shelter to the family of one of my father’s business associates, who fled from the French armies and suffered from the scorched-earth practice of the communists. Unfortunately, this family’s youngest daughter was afflicted with smallpox and died within a week. My father successfully persuaded her parents to have her baptized. Thus, she was an angel.
By mid-May my two-year-old brother, James Yen (Quiet), was infected with the same disease and died shortly. Then my four-year-old brother, Joseph Binh (Peace), contracted the same disease and suffered a painful death. Father Joseph Do came to our home and anointed him with holy oil in the sacrament of extreme unction. In a loud voice the priest told my brother to offer his sore body and pure soul to Jesus, Mary and Joseph. To which my brother replied in his frail voice, ‘Vang, vang’ (Yea, yea). Thus, within thirty days, we buried three babies, three angels.
During the funerals, my cousin Mai thi Hao, the eldest daughter of my father’s big sister and nanny to my baby brothers, was the loudest in her dolorous lamentation: “Oh, little brother, why did you have to leave us so soon? Oh, heaven and earth, yellow leaves remain on the trees, while green leaves fall down! Heavens, are you aware?”
I witnessed all three sorrowful and premature deaths. And I, then almost nineteen, resolved never to get married and never to have children, so that I would never have to be part of such painful ordeals. Never, never, never. I was adamant, I thought.
Two and a half years later I joined a small, adventurous group of escapees to flee by sea the communist-controlled areas. By groups of two or three, we walked about ten kilometers to a rendezvous spot near the mouth of River Day, then boarded a sampan to reach the uninhabited Hon Ne islet, about ten kilometers offshore. I stayed on this small island about three days on a diet of boiled rice and cooked shrimp until a group of fifteen escapees was assembled. We then boarded an outboard-motor canoe, also equipped with sails, to make the northward trip from the islet to the seaport of Haiphong. The sixty-mile voyage took us two days and one night. This was the beginning of an odyssey which took me from Haiphong to Hanoi, then Saigon, Singapore, Colombo, Port Said, Marseilles, Paris, Le Havre, New York City, and finally Portland, Oregon.
After completing my graduate studies at Syracuse University, I returned to Saigon toward the end of 1955. I spent the year 1956 running an English-language weekly news-magazine, The Times of Vietnam. In early 1957 I joined the management team of the Vietnam-Cambodia Division of Standard-Vacuum Oil Company (Stanvac), first as an assistant finance and accounting manager, and later as its public relations manager. In June 1958 I was deemed a confirmed thirty-year-old bachelor. My parents despaired. They urged me to settle down. They mentioned this and that nubile young woman.
In August of that year, Danielle, an angel, came into my life. I forgot all about my twelve-year-old, three-never resolution. Within six months we were married.
Within a period of fourteen years (1959-73), we had ten children, four boys and six girls. In reality God entrusted us with ten, then took away from us two; the two angels were Paul Anton Bao-Lan (1961-68) and Mary Joseph Diem-Ngoc (1968-74).
Paul Anton was a lovely child, the spitting image of his father. In fact, had he lived, he would now be a person much better than his dad. His horoscope typed him a passive male, a laid-back thinker, a meticulous observer, and a methodical analyst. Among many joyful experiences we had with him, I will relate the following two incidents.
In 1965 when we moved from Saigon to Dalat, Paul Anton was four. We had a few home appliances delivered to our Dalat chalet, including a Hitachi washing machine still in its crate. He watched me and my visiting father open the crate and take out the pieces for assembly. We thought that there were a few small pieces missing. He spotted a folded area of cardboard which turned out to contain the missing knobs and trimmings we were looking for. How observant he was! Such an angel.
January 30, 1968, was the first day of Tet, the Vietnamese New Year Festival. South Vietnam’s cease-fire went into effect at six the previous evening and was supposed to last for several days. Soldiers and civilians looked forward to a few days’ rest and celebration. The communist Tet offensive, started at midnight to coincide and to be confused with the popping of firecrackers, caught most of us unawares.
Early in the afternoon I drove our little car, a two-horse-power 2-CV Citroen, with Danielle on the side and Paul Anton in the back, to downtown Dalat toward the university campus. The trip was eerie. We saw no one until we came to the first street uphill. Then we saw them, nine or ten of them, carrying rifles and weaving in and out, door to door. Our seven-year-old Paul Anton told me, “Dad, it’s funny, they are wearing black.” I realized they were Vietcong. I made a sharp U-turn and drove back to our house. How observant was my little angel! He saved our lives.
On the third day of Tet, February 1, 1968, we used another route to move from our chalet to confined housing quarters within the university campus. Mary Jo, our seventh child and fourth daughter, was born on May Day, a holiday in honor of labor and of the carpenter St. Joseph. That’s why her baptismal name was Mary Joseph.
About a month after her birth Paul Anton was down with a bad cold. Our family doctor prescribed antibiotics, and more antibiotics. His condition worsened and the doctor suspected an infection of the kidneys. We took him back to Saigon and had him hospitalized at the French Hopital Grall. Diagnosis: a serious case of nephritis.
On September 7, 1968, Paul Anton expired while being held by his mother, as I ran around the hospital looking for the attending doctor and nurse.
We had him buried at Saigon’s Mac dinh Chi Cemetery. Among the mourners was Mai thi Hao, my cousin and nanny to our children. Again her dolorous lamentation of ‘Yellow leaves... Green leaves...’ Almost seven when he died, Paul Anton was an angel.
Mary Jo was a beautiful baby, the spitting image of her mother. In fact, had she lived, she would likely be a person much better than her mom. Her horoscope typed her an active female, a take-charge mover, a happy cheerleader, and a compassionate hand-holder. Among many joyful experiences we had with her, I will relate the following two incidents.
In 1973 she attended kindergarten and Luke, her four-year-old younger brother, attended pre-kindergarten at the same Brotherhood School. I often drove them there in the morning. Unfailingly she walked Luke first to the lavatory for a small relief, then to Luke’s classroom, before heading to her own classroom. Such a helpful sister!
About one week before Christmas that year, I was in Dalat teaching and attending to other university affairs, when I received an emergency phone call from Danielle. She was frantic. Mary Jo had an abnormally high temperature. The doctor at Hopital Grall suspected a bad case of hemorrhagic fever. After some blood transfusion, she became worse and we feared we might lose her at any time. I cut short my stay and rushed back to Saigon to be at the bedside of my daughter.
In her frail voice she asked, “Daddy, am I going to die?”
“Oh, honey, if that’s God’s will. But let’s hope for the best.”
Somehow, we heard that our daughter had received some blood of the wrong type. Nothing more could be done. So we took her home. The doctor prescribed medication to ease her pain. She had too much fluid retention. She was swelling. We brought her to Saigon Children’s Hospital. Diagnosis: a bad case of aplastic anemia. We heard talk of thalassemia. Somebody mentioned leukemia. It’s all so confusing. Through it all, lying in a hospital bed, our darling daughter was calm, a most patient patient.
A few beds away a young boy kept on shouting at intervals, “Heaven and Earth, Spirit and Demon, why do I suffer so much? I want to die.” On my daily visit our calm daughter told me, “Last night that boy cried so much, he was in so much pain. I am so sorry for him.” How compassionate, my daughter! Such an angel.
About half an hour past noon on April 22, 1974, Mary Jo went into convulsion and expired in my arms. Her heart gave out. We were never sure what was wrong with her, what caused her death.
We had her buried in the same cemetery, not too far from her brother Paul Anton’s grave. Again my cousin’s dolorous lamentation of ‘Yellow leaves... Green leaves...’ Almost six when she died, Mary Jo was an angel.
In the month following her death Danielle showed photos of Paul Anton and Mary Jo to our friend, artist-painter Lac-Minh, and commissioned him to do two small portraits. Danielle really liked these portraits and had them hung on the wall of her business office. That’s where they hung, when we suddenly departed from Saigon on the night of April 29, 1975, before South Vietnam fell into communist hands.
Since that night I have always believed that our escape was providential. But of course, God helps those who help themselves. The three main factors that contributed to our escape were: first, the location of our apartment next to the U.S. Marine helicopter pick-up point; second, Danielle’s presence of mind in recognizing that the helicopter was our only chance; and third, the intercession of my two brothers who died in May 1947 and our two deceased children, Paul Anton and Mary Jo. Come to think of it, our moving into that apartment was an extreme drain on our financial resources; but Danielle insisted and I acquiesced. So the credit should also go to Danielle.
When we moved into our newly-built house in December 1978, Danielle longed to have those two oil portraits for hanging next to two built-in-the-wall aquariums to remind us of our two angels. Her wish was finally fulfilled in 1992.
The Mac dinh Chi Cemetery in Saigon occupied an entire city block and was the most famous of all burial grounds in South Vietnam, except for the Nguyen Emperors’ mausoleums in the imperial city of Hue. In early 1980, proceeding from a vengeful spirit, the communist rulers decreed the removal of all the dead and the transformation of the cemetery into a children’s park. In 1982 my siblings in Saigon had the remains of our two children exhumed and cremated. We received their ashes later that year.
In April 1992, eleven years after I completed sponsorship papers, my youngest sister’s family of four left Vietnam and came to our home. To our complete surprise, she brought along the portraits of our beloved children. Danielle was joyfully in tears.
Most of the time throughout my life I am in good spirit and I feel I am surrounded and protected by good spiritual beings, the angels.
Lá xanh rụng xuống! Trời hay chăng trời? Green leaves fall down! Heavens, are you aware?
Angels are spiritual beings who, in medieval angelology, were the lowest of the nine celestial orders -- seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominations, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels, and angels. But an angel can also be defined as a deceased person whose soul is regarded as having been accepted into heaven or a living person having qualities generally attributed to an angel, as beauty, purity, or kindliness.
In December 1946, the French-Vietnamese war erupted in Hanoi and Haiphong. I left the capital city to return to Phatdiem, my birthplace. The Vietnamese resistance under Ho chi Minh waged guerrilla warfare and practiced the scorched-earth policy of destroying property, crops, roads, bridges, dams, and anything else of benefit to the French advancing force. By April 1947 most of the cities or urban areas were occupied by the French armies, whereas the Vietnamese countryside was in the hands of Ho’s communist troops. In early May my parents provided shelter to the family of one of my father’s business associates, who fled from the French armies and suffered from the scorched-earth practice of the communists. Unfortunately, this family’s youngest daughter was afflicted with smallpox and died within a week. My father successfully persuaded her parents to have her baptized. Thus, she was an angel.
By mid-May my two-year-old brother, James Yen (Quiet), was infected with the same disease and died shortly. Then my four-year-old brother, Joseph Binh (Peace), contracted the same disease and suffered a painful death. Father Joseph Do came to our home and anointed him with holy oil in the sacrament of extreme unction. In a loud voice the priest told my brother to offer his sore body and pure soul to Jesus, Mary and Joseph. To which my brother replied in his frail voice, ‘Vang, vang’ (Yea, yea). Thus, within thirty days, we buried three babies, three angels.
During the funerals, my cousin Mai thi Hao, the eldest daughter of my father’s big sister and nanny to my baby brothers, was the loudest in her dolorous lamentation: “Oh, little brother, why did you have to leave us so soon? Oh, heaven and earth, yellow leaves remain on the trees, while green leaves fall down! Heavens, are you aware?”
I witnessed all three sorrowful and premature deaths. And I, then almost nineteen, resolved never to get married and never to have children, so that I would never have to be part of such painful ordeals. Never, never, never. I was adamant, I thought.
Two and a half years later I joined a small, adventurous group of escapees to flee by sea the communist-controlled areas. By groups of two or three, we walked about ten kilometers to a rendezvous spot near the mouth of River Day, then boarded a sampan to reach the uninhabited Hon Ne islet, about ten kilometers offshore. I stayed on this small island about three days on a diet of boiled rice and cooked shrimp until a group of fifteen escapees was assembled. We then boarded an outboard-motor canoe, also equipped with sails, to make the northward trip from the islet to the seaport of Haiphong. The sixty-mile voyage took us two days and one night. This was the beginning of an odyssey which took me from Haiphong to Hanoi, then Saigon, Singapore, Colombo, Port Said, Marseilles, Paris, Le Havre, New York City, and finally Portland, Oregon.
After completing my graduate studies at Syracuse University, I returned to Saigon toward the end of 1955. I spent the year 1956 running an English-language weekly news-magazine, The Times of Vietnam. In early 1957 I joined the management team of the Vietnam-Cambodia Division of Standard-Vacuum Oil Company (Stanvac), first as an assistant finance and accounting manager, and later as its public relations manager. In June 1958 I was deemed a confirmed thirty-year-old bachelor. My parents despaired. They urged me to settle down. They mentioned this and that nubile young woman.
In August of that year, Danielle, an angel, came into my life. I forgot all about my twelve-year-old, three-never resolution. Within six months we were married.
Within a period of fourteen years (1959-73), we had ten children, four boys and six girls. In reality God entrusted us with ten, then took away from us two; the two angels were Paul Anton Bao-Lan (1961-68) and Mary Joseph Diem-Ngoc (1968-74).
Paul Anton was a lovely child, the spitting image of his father. In fact, had he lived, he would now be a person much better than his dad. His horoscope typed him a passive male, a laid-back thinker, a meticulous observer, and a methodical analyst. Among many joyful experiences we had with him, I will relate the following two incidents.
In 1965 when we moved from Saigon to Dalat, Paul Anton was four. We had a few home appliances delivered to our Dalat chalet, including a Hitachi washing machine still in its crate. He watched me and my visiting father open the crate and take out the pieces for assembly. We thought that there were a few small pieces missing. He spotted a folded area of cardboard which turned out to contain the missing knobs and trimmings we were looking for. How observant he was! Such an angel.
January 30, 1968, was the first day of Tet, the Vietnamese New Year Festival. South Vietnam’s cease-fire went into effect at six the previous evening and was supposed to last for several days. Soldiers and civilians looked forward to a few days’ rest and celebration. The communist Tet offensive, started at midnight to coincide and to be confused with the popping of firecrackers, caught most of us unawares.
Early in the afternoon I drove our little car, a two-horse-power 2-CV Citroen, with Danielle on the side and Paul Anton in the back, to downtown Dalat toward the university campus. The trip was eerie. We saw no one until we came to the first street uphill. Then we saw them, nine or ten of them, carrying rifles and weaving in and out, door to door. Our seven-year-old Paul Anton told me, “Dad, it’s funny, they are wearing black.” I realized they were Vietcong. I made a sharp U-turn and drove back to our house. How observant was my little angel! He saved our lives.
On the third day of Tet, February 1, 1968, we used another route to move from our chalet to confined housing quarters within the university campus. Mary Jo, our seventh child and fourth daughter, was born on May Day, a holiday in honor of labor and of the carpenter St. Joseph. That’s why her baptismal name was Mary Joseph.
About a month after her birth Paul Anton was down with a bad cold. Our family doctor prescribed antibiotics, and more antibiotics. His condition worsened and the doctor suspected an infection of the kidneys. We took him back to Saigon and had him hospitalized at the French Hopital Grall. Diagnosis: a serious case of nephritis.
On September 7, 1968, Paul Anton expired while being held by his mother, as I ran around the hospital looking for the attending doctor and nurse.
We had him buried at Saigon’s Mac dinh Chi Cemetery. Among the mourners was Mai thi Hao, my cousin and nanny to our children. Again her dolorous lamentation of ‘Yellow leaves... Green leaves...’ Almost seven when he died, Paul Anton was an angel.
Mary Jo was a beautiful baby, the spitting image of her mother. In fact, had she lived, she would likely be a person much better than her mom. Her horoscope typed her an active female, a take-charge mover, a happy cheerleader, and a compassionate hand-holder. Among many joyful experiences we had with her, I will relate the following two incidents.
In 1973 she attended kindergarten and Luke, her four-year-old younger brother, attended pre-kindergarten at the same Brotherhood School. I often drove them there in the morning. Unfailingly she walked Luke first to the lavatory for a small relief, then to Luke’s classroom, before heading to her own classroom. Such a helpful sister!
About one week before Christmas that year, I was in Dalat teaching and attending to other university affairs, when I received an emergency phone call from Danielle. She was frantic. Mary Jo had an abnormally high temperature. The doctor at Hopital Grall suspected a bad case of hemorrhagic fever. After some blood transfusion, she became worse and we feared we might lose her at any time. I cut short my stay and rushed back to Saigon to be at the bedside of my daughter.
In her frail voice she asked, “Daddy, am I going to die?”
“Oh, honey, if that’s God’s will. But let’s hope for the best.”
Somehow, we heard that our daughter had received some blood of the wrong type. Nothing more could be done. So we took her home. The doctor prescribed medication to ease her pain. She had too much fluid retention. She was swelling. We brought her to Saigon Children’s Hospital. Diagnosis: a bad case of aplastic anemia. We heard talk of thalassemia. Somebody mentioned leukemia. It’s all so confusing. Through it all, lying in a hospital bed, our darling daughter was calm, a most patient patient.
A few beds away a young boy kept on shouting at intervals, “Heaven and Earth, Spirit and Demon, why do I suffer so much? I want to die.” On my daily visit our calm daughter told me, “Last night that boy cried so much, he was in so much pain. I am so sorry for him.” How compassionate, my daughter! Such an angel.
About half an hour past noon on April 22, 1974, Mary Jo went into convulsion and expired in my arms. Her heart gave out. We were never sure what was wrong with her, what caused her death.
We had her buried in the same cemetery, not too far from her brother Paul Anton’s grave. Again my cousin’s dolorous lamentation of ‘Yellow leaves... Green leaves...’ Almost six when she died, Mary Jo was an angel.
In the month following her death Danielle showed photos of Paul Anton and Mary Jo to our friend, artist-painter Lac-Minh, and commissioned him to do two small portraits. Danielle really liked these portraits and had them hung on the wall of her business office. That’s where they hung, when we suddenly departed from Saigon on the night of April 29, 1975, before South Vietnam fell into communist hands.
Since that night I have always believed that our escape was providential. But of course, God helps those who help themselves. The three main factors that contributed to our escape were: first, the location of our apartment next to the U.S. Marine helicopter pick-up point; second, Danielle’s presence of mind in recognizing that the helicopter was our only chance; and third, the intercession of my two brothers who died in May 1947 and our two deceased children, Paul Anton and Mary Jo. Come to think of it, our moving into that apartment was an extreme drain on our financial resources; but Danielle insisted and I acquiesced. So the credit should also go to Danielle.
When we moved into our newly-built house in December 1978, Danielle longed to have those two oil portraits for hanging next to two built-in-the-wall aquariums to remind us of our two angels. Her wish was finally fulfilled in 1992.
The Mac dinh Chi Cemetery in Saigon occupied an entire city block and was the most famous of all burial grounds in South Vietnam, except for the Nguyen Emperors’ mausoleums in the imperial city of Hue. In early 1980, proceeding from a vengeful spirit, the communist rulers decreed the removal of all the dead and the transformation of the cemetery into a children’s park. In 1982 my siblings in Saigon had the remains of our two children exhumed and cremated. We received their ashes later that year.
In April 1992, eleven years after I completed sponsorship papers, my youngest sister’s family of four left Vietnam and came to our home. To our complete surprise, she brought along the portraits of our beloved children. Danielle was joyfully in tears.
Most of the time throughout my life I am in good spirit and I feel I am surrounded and protected by good spiritual beings, the angels.
1. Bio-Sketch, Evacuees - February 1997
2. Refugees, Parolees - March 1997 3. Names, Goals - April 1997 4. Homes, Addresses - April 1997 5. Birthdays, Angels - May 1997 6. Tongues, Spirits - May 1997 7. Scoops, Phoenix - September 1997 * Encounter of a kind 8. Charmer, Anthill - September 1997 9. Sand Crabs, Children, Sons-in-law - October 1997 10. Careers, Idealism, Titles - October 1997 11. Calendars, Customs - November 1997 12. Notables, Jobs, Missions - December 1997 |
13. [University of Dalat] Politics, Professors, Group Study… - December 1997
14 - Family, Parents - Sibling, Roots 15. Money, Cars, Drivers 16 - Controls - Grand-Children, Generations - Bananas 17 - Ancestors, Turtledoves - Transients, Ashes, Immortals - Migrants, Nature, Colors 18 - Nuts, Guts, Offices, Stones - November, Talents, Journeys 19. Eulogy to Yvonne |