We didn’t find out until recently that I was one of the babies that John saved in Vietnam.
For years, John came to my office every day.
He was polite, silent, and always ordered the same thing.
I thought, “Just another customer.”
Last week, I talked about how my boyfriend and I were going to Vietnam.
That was when everything changed.
His face turned blank.
“I was there,” he whispered softly.
moment Saigon went down.
I helped put orphans on flights that would save them.
My heart sank.
I was born in Vietnam and adopted as a baby.
I told him.
He stopped in the middle of his walk and looked at me with tears in his eyes.
“I might have held you then,” he continued.
We didn’t say anything.
Now I was fighting a guy whose hands had saved my life before.
We talked for a long time.
He remembers how crazy that day was, with the kids screaming, the tension, and the rush to get them on aircraft.
Before he left, he ran his hand over my shoulder.
It will help me sleep better tonight to know that you made it.
I thought we were done talking when he turned around.
He said, “One more thing.”
“I haven’t talked about this in years.”
John rubbed his hands together and sank back, as if he didn’t have the energy to talk.
Then he stared at me with a really open glance.
I had a kid there.
in Saigon.
I felt like something was weighing me down.
“Did you have a child?”
He nodded.
Her name was Linh.
We fell in love.
We had a boy.
When I tried to take them with me, everything went apart.
I never saw them again.
He broke down.
“I looked for years.”
No record.
A name, a memory that is fading, and this.
He pulled out an old picture.
It showed him as a young man with a baby and a Vietnamese woman with dark eyes who took care of him.
“I don’t know if they got out,” he said.
“If they are still alive.”
But it would mean a lot to me to know that they are okay.
I saw the picture.
The baby’s face.
John’s smile was sweet.
I didn’t think it was a coincidence.
“What if I help?”
I asked him and stared at him.
He blinked in shock.
“That’s what you would do?”
I’m going to Vietnam.
I know people whose duty it is to find the families of troops.
Please send me the picture.
All of your memories.
For the first time since we talked, John looked hopeful.
We chatted about everything for an hour, from Linh’s hair to the hospital where their son was born to her neighborhood.
I wrote everything down like I was sending him his last prayer.
I met a friend who works as an archivist in Ho Chi Minh City.
She made a copy of the picture and gave it to people who were looking into the family trees of soldiers.
Days passed.
Then a week.
Two.
Then the phone rang.
“We think we’ve found someone.”
My heart was beating fast.
His name was Bao.
Linh was his mother’s name.
She talked a lot about an American soldier who wanted to take her and her kids with him.
I was shaking when I knocked on the door.
Someone in their late fifties opened the door.
It was evident that he had Linh’s eyes and John’s jawline.
I took a deep breath.
“Bao?”
He gave it some thinking.
“Who are you?”
I took the photo off the wall.
“I think this is your dad.”
He was astonished and looked at it.
This is something I’ve never seen before.
My mom never took a picture of him.
But she stated he tried to stay because he loved us.
I told him, “She was right.”
“He never stopped looking for you.”
I called John.
He said in a careful tone.
“Is there anything new?”
“I think I’ve found your son.”
He was quiet for a few seconds.
He took a hesitant breath after that.
“Are you sure?”
“Come look at this.”
A week later, John came off an aircraft in Vietnam and looked worried.
Bao walked up slowly.
Then, like magnets, the two men got closer and closer until they were looking at each other.
Then, some fifty years later, John gave his son a hug.
They both went crazy.
“Bao cried like a kid in his dad’s arms.”
John, who had been silent and strong, cried when he held him.
Later, they told stories over coffee.
John stroked Linh’s face while holding a picture of her from years before she died.
He said, “I never stopped loving her.”
As I was leaving Vietnam, they were planning their first vacation to America as a father and son. They were getting back the time the war had robbed from them.
And I had something special with me: the idea that love will always find a way to come back, no matter how long it takes or how far apart we are.