We didn’t realize until recently that John saved me as a baby in Vietnam.
John used to come to my office all the time for years.
He was polite, silent, and always ordered the same thing.
I thought, “Just another customer.”
I talked about how my partner and I are going to Vietnam next week.
That was the point when everything changed.
His face turned blank.
“I was there,” he remarked in a low voice.
when Saigon fell.
I helped put orphans aboard flights that would take them to safety.
My heart sank.
I was born in Vietnam and was adopted as a baby.
I told him.
He stopped in the middle of his stride and looked at me with tears in his eyes.
He said, “I might have held you then.”
We didn’t say a word.
I was now fighting a guy whose hands had saved my life before.
We talked for a long time.
He remembers how chaotic that day was, with the kids screaming, the tension, and the race to get them on aircraft.
Before he left, he stroked my shoulder.
Knowing that you made it will help me sleep better tonight.
I thought we were done talking when he turned around.
He said, “There’s one more thing.”
“I haven’t talked about this in a long time.”
John rubbed his hands together and leaned back, as if he didn’t have the strength to talk.
After that, he stared at me with a really open look.
I had a baby there.
in Saigon.
There was something heavy on my chest.
“You had a kid?”
He nodded.
Her name was Linh.
We fell in love.
We had a boy.
Things went wrong when I tried to take them with me.
I didn’t see them again.
His voice broke.
“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 guy with a baby and a Vietnamese woman with black eyes who looked after him.
“I don’t know if they made it out,” he replied.
“Only if they are still alive.”
But simply knowing that they are safe would mean a lot to me.
I looked at the picture.
The baby’s face.
John’s smile was pure.
I didn’t think it was a coincidence.
“What if I help?”
I looked at him and inquired.
He blinked in amazement.
“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 past.
For the first time since we chatted, John looked like he had hope.
We talked for an hour about everything, including Linh’s hair, the hospital where their son was delivered, and her neighborhood.
I wrote down everything as if I were sending him his final prayer.
I met a friend in Ho Chi Minh City who works as an archivist.
She made copies of the picture and gave them to people who were looking into the family trees of soldiers.
Days passed.
Then a week.
Two.
The phone rang after that.
“We think we found someone.”
My heart was racing.
Bao was his name.
His mother was named Linh.
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.
A man in his late fifties opened the door.
He had Linh’s eyes and John’s jawline, which was obvious.
I took a big breath.
“Bao?”
He thought about it.
“Who are you?”
I took the photo down.
“I think this is your dad.”
He was shocked and stared at it.
This is the first time I’ve seen something like this.
My mom never took a picture of him.
But she stated he tried to stay because he loved us.
I told him, “You were right.”
“He never stopped searching for you.”
I called John.
He spoke in a careful way.
“Is there any new news?”
“I think I’ve found your son.”
For a few seconds, he didn’t say anything.
He then let out a trembling breath.
“Are you sure?”
“Come look at this.”
John got off an aircraft in Vietnam a week later, and he looked worried.
Bao walked up slowly.
Then, like magnets, the two men got closer until they could see each other.
Then, over fifty years later, John hugged his son.
Both of them went crazy.
“Bao cried like a kid being held by his father.”
John cried when he held him, even though he had been silent and stoic.
They talked over coffee later.
John held a picture of Linh from years before she died and stroked her face.
“I never stopped loving her,” he said.
As I was leaving Vietnam, they were planning their first vacation to America as father and son to get back the time the war had robbed from them.
And I brought with me something special: the idea that love will always find a way to come back, no matter how long it’s been or how far apart we are.
