On March 30, 1967, Albert Anter, age 18, died in a bloody gun battle in Vietnam. Though only 3 at the time, I remember my Uncle Albert. He had come to visit when my younger brother John was born. He was very handsome in his crisp Marine dress uniform.
Albert�s sister Sarah, my mother, was 30 when her brother died. Raising five children under age 8, she had little time to grieve. As the years went by, the pain of his death bored into my mother�s heart and psyche. Albert�s brothers and sisters describe him as a wonderful young man, the life of the party, a terrific brother. His Marine platoon leader said, �When you met Albert, you met a friend.�
For my mother, the decades marched on with the grief walled off. Her children grew, her sons married, and by 2002 she had nine grandchildren. Then, out of the blue in January that year, I announced, �I am adopting a child from Vietnam.�
My mother�s reaction was immediate and visceral.
�Why are you doing this to me?� she demanded. I had never heard my mother so passionate. I could not answer. �I will never set foot in Vietnam. Never!� My mother was emphatic, and I made a polite, hasty exit from my parent�s home.
A few days later, my mother came to visit me. While we sat at the dinner table, I said softly, �Mom, I am not doing this to you. I am doing it for me.� My mother replied, �He died for nothing.�
Her pain was palpable, her heart open. With her shoulders slouched and her head down, I could see the grief was as real as in 1967. It was as if no time had passed and 35 years of living were erased. The grief sat open again before us.
What does a daughter say to her mother who has experienced such suffering and whose wound is as fresh as the day the news came? After a long and still silence, I said, �Albert did not die for nothing. He fought for what he believed in. He fought for the freedom of the Vietnamese people so that they might have the opportunities Americans have.�
Over the next months, as I completed the adoption paperwork, the conversations between us continued. We spoke about the people of Vietnam, about how they were just like the people everywhere, concerned about their families and friends, concerned about how to put food on the table in a homeland that was struggling economically. We spoke about how they, like Americans, still grieve the loved ones who died in the war.
The adoption match was made in July 2002 with a 3-week-old baby boy. The agency asked whether I would be accompanied on the 36-hour trip to Vietnam to bring my son home. It recommended repeatedly that someone accompany me on this momentous occasion. Several of my friends offered to make the trip, but in the end none could.
Against the firm recommendation of the adoption agency, I would have to make the 18,000 mile round-trip alone.
What a surprise when my mother declared, �I am going with you.�
Sarah Canavan, grandmother of nine, was adamant. �Motherhood is too challenging for a new mother to do without help, and I am determined to help you.�
We made the journey together. Eight months after mother emphatically declared she would �never� set foot in Vietnam, she was on a plane for Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City).
The trip was daunting, the culture stimulating and exciting but very different. Albert�s death hovered like a shadow ever near us. Two weeks later, my mother, the baby and I arrived back in the United States exhausted beyond measure, sick from exposure to bacteria to which our bodies were not resistant and rejoicing over the 10th grandchild in the family.
For me, perhaps the most amazing blessing was to see how my mother welcomed the healing that the adoption process had begun and that, now, the Vietnamese people had completed. She realized firsthand the joys and sorrows that we have in common with this people on the other side of the world.
We were welcomed with open arms. The Vietnamese encountered on the streets, in stores and in government positions held no animosity toward us. On our way out of Saigon, the baggage handler at the hotel gazed at the baby cradled in my mother�s arms and said to her, �Lucky baby going to America.�
My mother�s wound, borne silently for 35 years, was cleansed with this trip. She actually took two journeys � one to Vietnam and one to a healed heart. She is a remarkable woman. And she is the very proud grandmother of a Vietnamese-American boy named David.
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