PART SEVEN
After stepping through the doorway, the first thing Daniel notices is peace. Peacefulness fills the room. It is so present and so evident he feels as though he can reach out and touch it, or rather, it feels as though it is reaching out and touching him.
He also notices he does not feel much different in this new identity. He is a woman like Donna, and a mother. But, then he looks at his hands and sees they are wizened and leathery. And he also discovers the Bible in his right hand has transformed into a simple oil lantern.
He puts the lantern down on a plain wooden table and looks around the small single room. It is rustic, but immaculately clean. Everything in the room seems to be perfectly placed. Everything is in harmony. As Daniel looks around, even the placement of the furniture and all of the other things in the room seem to radiate the overall environment of peacefulness.
Daniel looks to his right and sees a bed against the wall. An old Asian man is lying asleep on it. Daniel’s knees buckle and he stumbles over to sit down on a nearby wooden chair. He can barely breathe. The depth of love he feels for the man makes him swoon. It is as though the entire process of loving this man, moment by moment, for the last sixty-five years hits him all at once and washes over him like a warm soothing wave.
After several moments, Daniel’s strength returns, so he gets up from the chair, walks over to the side of the bed, and kneels down next to the man. He gently runs the fingers of his wizened hand through the silky white strands of the man’s hair. Then he bends over and tenderly kisses the man on the forehead.
It is nighttime. Daniel stands up, walks slowly over to the doorway and steps out into the night air, which is fresh and full of the aromas and melodies of nature. He looks up to an orchestra of stars perfectly seated in the great concert hall of the evening sky -- all twinkling in perfect tempo with the master conductor of the universe.
The next day, Daniel discovers he has assumed the identity of an old Asian woman named Dinh, who has lived as a simple rice paddy farmer for her entire life. She has three children, two daughters and one son, who are all grown and married with children of their own.
Her husband, the love of her life, is on his way out. His body is slowly and methodically shutting down, and his mind has already been somewhere else for several years. It has been quite a long time since their lifelong partnership of working together in the rice paddies transitioned to a one-woman job. But, she merely views it all like a clock perfectly timed and ticking away in stride with nature -- up in the morning, work during the day, sleep at night. It is an ongoing cycle of planting, harvesting, eating, drinking, talking, laughing, dreaming and loving.
For some strange reason, Daniel feels as though he has finally arrived at the final destination of his journey through time. He is obviously not back home, but he cannot deny the fact that he feels completely at home. He wonders, ‘Is this where I am supposed to be? Is this the outcome of this crazy journey through time? Am I, in my true essence, an elderly Asian woman in the middle of a rice paddy farm somewhere in Southeast Asia?’
Daniel has no idea where he is in time. There is no reference point in Dinh’s mind. The simple way of life he currently occupies may not have changed for hundreds of years. He wonders if he went decades backward in time, or even if he went decades of years forward in time. What he knows for sure is he does not care. He is perfectly content and perfectly at peace with himself.
+ - + - + - +
Dinh knows today is the day. She feels it travelling up and down her spine as she bends over to pour her tea. And she feels it in her heart as it distributes the life giving fluid back and forth from her hands and feet to her chest. Her soul is being readied. It is beginning to unwind.
They have been one with each other for so long she cannot remember what it was like not being one with him. They are uniquely themselves and uniquely combined -- a single sum of two parts -- two strands of rope woven together and bound as one cord of life.
She knows today, she will be looking into his crystal clear eyes for the last time. And he knows as well, so he looks up at her and smiles. He wants to speak his goodbye to her, but the joy of conversation with her ceased years ago.
Those days of hearing his loving words are long gone, but she closes her eyes and hears the message of his heart anyway, ‘I love you, my darling lily blossom. Oh, how I wish I could tell you one last time how much I love you, and how much I have enjoyed spending my life with you. You have walked with me on this part of my journey and have shown me the way to be whole through every step we took together. You have lovingly lit my path with your spirit and gently ushered me into the reality of who I truly am.’
He wants to reach out and touch the quivering cheek of his lover that is being so tenderly moistened by her loving tears, but his arm and hand do not obey him anymore.
‘I have felt your sorrow, my dear one, as you have looked at me lying here during these last few years. But, oh how I have longed to tell you there was no need for sorrow at all. Yes, on your side of life our connection is broken, but on my side of life we are dancing! On my side of life I see splendor! I see glorious wonders! It is I who am sorrowful I cannot tell you about them or show them to you. Oh, how I long for the day when we are both fully here on this side together!’
Dinh slowly opens her eyes to see sixty-five years of tender intimacy spiral back into his empty watery crystal clear eyes. She sighs and looks one last time through those two pearlescent doorways into the soul of her lover. Oh, how she longs to dive into those two pools of lifelong love. But, the moon is full and the tide is low. Life is being drawn back into the sea, back to where it came from.
Finally, the curtains close on those two windows to his soul. Life giving air ceases to be drawn in and sent out. His house is empty. It has fulfilled its purpose. He is free.
Dinh knows she will be with him again when it comes time for the jar of clay that is temporarily holding the oil of her life to crack open and spill its contents back into the earth. So, she does not skip too many beats after the passage of her partner, and returns to ticking away days in the timeless unstoppable clock of life in the rice paddies.
+ - + - + - +
She has heard them before, but it was way off in the distance, never this close. And, she has never seen one.
It is terribly frightening as she feels the sharp pounding vibrations in the air and the deafening sound of the blades slicing through the clear blue sky. She drops to her knees in the rice paddy, frightened to death and covering her head for dear life.
When she feels as though her chest is about to explode, she rallies every ounce of curiosity and bravery in her being to look up and see the three Vietnamese Army helicopters hovering in the air above her head. Their artificial wind whips the water and the tiny rice plants into frenzied whirling dervishes all around her. The violent flapping of her clothes against her body makes her feel as though she is going to be stripped naked at any moment.
They look like giant grotesque grasshoppers with bulging glass eyes and pointy jagged legs. They are horrible -- exact opposite representations of her peaceful world. They are hellish intruders into her heavenly dwelling place.
She does not know why they are there that day, and she does not care. All she hopes is they never return.
A few days after that cruel interruption of her quiet peaceful way of life, Dinh is tending an area of the rice paddy near an outcrop of trees. As she works her way along the row of plants, she is startled when she unexpectedly happens upon the body of a U.S. soldier lying wounded and unconscious in her field.
She races as quickly as she can back to her farmhouse and retrieves her hauling sled. She drags it along its runners back to the soldier and, with much difficulty, rolls him onto the sled and drags him back to her house.
Daniel prays and prays for some of his youthful strength to energize Dinh’s ancient frame, so she can lift the dead weight of the young man’s body from the sled outside to the bed inside. He isn’t sure if it is t
he prayer or just pure adrenaline, but after much effort, the task is accomplished and Dinh begins to care for the soldier’s wounds.
Dinh is amazed at how large the man is. She has never seen a Caucasian. He is so much taller and bulkier than any man she has ever seen occupying the isolated world of her tiny village.
His face is badly beaten, bruised, bloody and swollen. She removes his shirt and discovers he has also been beaten quite severely on his back. Fortunately, she does not find any evidence of broken bones. A couple of fingers are dislocated, but she is able to relocate them fairly easily. If there are any internal injuries, it does not appear they are life threatening. Overall, this poor soul is simply badly beaten and exhausted and dehydrated.
For the next several days, Dinh works diligently and tenderly to clean up the soldier and to care for his wounds. She does everything she knows that might assist his body’s self-repair system. During his sporadic and brief moments of consciousness she is able to gradually get the liquids into him that she knows he so desperately needs.
Eventually, the soldier is more conscious than unconscious. He is beginning to become aware of his surroundings, and of the tender loving person who is tirelessly tending to his needs.
One morning, he awakens to the sound of a brass bowl being struck gently in a slow tempo. He smells the incense burning and opens his eyes to see clearly for the first time where he is. He looks over and sees Dinh kneeling in front of a low table. Dinh senses him looking at her and slowly turns toward him and smiles. The warmth of her wizened face seems to travel across the room and melt all over him like a soothing balm.
“Where am I?” asks the solder, with a dry cracked voice.
Dinh smiles and then rises and walks over to a table. She pours a cup of tea and brings it over to him. She tries to tell him what has happened, but he just gets a confused look on his face and smiles, and then takes a sip of tea and politely looks back at her.
Daniel now finds himself in a complicated situation. He can understand the soldier speaking English, but the soldier cannot understand him speaking in English because Dinh’s mouth cannot formulate the words properly. Her body will not cooperate with Daniel’s mind. He tries slowing his speech down and being ultra precise with each syllable, but he hears it coming out of his mouth like a bizarre combination of Vietnamese and English. Again, the soldier merely smiles politely and nods graciously.
Daniel also realizes it would be much too unreal and out of place for an old Vietnamese woman to speak fluent English, so he accepts the language barrier for what it is, and the two of them continue on and manage to communicate as well as possible. Daniel is able to adapt quickly to pretending as though he does not understand the soldier, especially when he sees that the soldier gets a little uneasy when Dinh appears to respond appropriately to his words.
“You certainly seem to have some uncanny way of understanding what I say,” says the soldier. “It is like we have some type of connection that is bigger than the two of us.”
Dinh simply smiles and puts the plate of food down in front of him.
He nods, and says, “Thank you, danh tu.” Then, he continues, “But, I can completely understand it. Here we are, out in the middle of nowhere. No distractions. I mean, we are all we have. All we have here is each other. We have to be able to communicate.
“I guess there must be a universal connection between all of us, all over the world. And, maybe if we just slowed down and listened to each other... well, maybe if we really cared about each other, it would not be difficult at all to communicate, at least about the most important things in life, right? Like, I can’t talk to you about baseball, but you do seem to understand how thankful I am to you for rescuing me... for saving my life.”
The soldier smiles at Dinh and takes a bite of food, and then says, “And, I understand how much you seem to love me, even though you haven’t the foggiest idea who I am. I think it must be these essential human issues that are common to all of us that transcend the language barriers.”
Dinh takes a sip of her tea and looks over the brim of the cup at the soldier.
The soldier laughs, and says, “Yes, and I certainly understand that look! You think I talk too much and eat too little!”
So, he takes several bites of his meal, and then continues, “I have always been this way. I just... I guess I have always preferred to look at the big picture. Like now... even though I got the shit kicked out of me and was thrown out for dead... I feel like... well, I mean, it is so amazing being here with you. I have never felt such a strong sense of peace in my entire life.
“It is so beautiful out here... so serene... so simple. I have never felt so connected to the universe as I have out here, right now. It is like I actually died out there in the jungle, and somehow I have been reborn here with you.” Then he lifts an eyebrow, and continues, “Maybe this is heaven. Maybe you are God.”
Dinh blushes and quietly laughs and looks down at her plate.
The soldier freezes, stares at her and gets a pensive look on his face. Then he takes a deep breath and shakes his head thoughtfully, and says, “This is way too... man, this is... I don’t even know how... I can’t even put it into... ”
Dinh simply smiles warmly, reaches out across the table and places her hand on the top of his.
That seems to settle the issue. The soldier takes another deep breath and bows his head to Dinh, and says, “You are an amazing woman. I will never forget you.”
+ - + - + - +
A few days later, early in the morning, Dinh gets up out of bed, walks over to the door and looks out. She sees the young soldier standing in the yard outside the farmhouse watching the sun rise. She knows today is the day. Even though she has only known this other soul for a short time, she has developed a similar type of intuitive oneness with him that she had with her lifelong partner. She slowly walks out the door and stands next to him.
“I am pretty sure my base is in that direction,” he says, pointing out across the rice paddies. “I’m sure they have no idea I am even alive.” He reaches down and puts his arm around Dinh, and says, “Because if it weren’t for you, I would be dead. I would be just another useless casualty of this useless conflict between people who just can’t figure out how to love one another.”
Dinh closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath of fresh morning air.
“My parents are probably worried sick about me,” he continues. “They are probably checking every POW/MIA list they can get their hands on, to see if my name is on it.”
He looks down at his lovely little friend, and says, “I need to go home.” Dinh nods once, and then he continues, “Honestly... my soul feels so at home here with you, but unfortunately, my home is back in the old US of A. Back in Minnesota, of all places, far far away from here, in more ways than mere miles.”
Dinh is about half his height, so the soldier takes a knee, grasps her hands and looks into her wizened face, and says, “I will always and forever be so so deeply indebted to you. And, somehow, some way, I know I need to pay back what you have so sacrificially and graciously done for me.” He then moves in close to her and gives her a big bear hug, nearly lifting her off her feet. After several moments of tender closeness, he separates from their embrace, holds her by the shoulders and looks into her eyes, and says, “Thank you, my friend... my mother... my savior. I love you with all my heart.”
The soldier then stands up, steps back slightly away from her, bows respectfully and turns and walks away.
As he walks away, the entire atmosphere around them turns hollow. Dinh gradually hears a man’s voice fading in and narrating everything that is happening around the two of them. She can’t tell if the voice is coming from outside or inside her head.
The voice narrates the soldier stopping about twenty yards away from her and looking down at his chest. It describes him reaching up to his chest with his right hand, clutching his dog tags, slowly pulling them up over his head, and then turning around and walking back towar
d her.
Tears run down Dinh’s cheeks like little rivulets networking their way through the wrinkles in her skin, as she looks at this young man whom she has grown to love so dearly, walking slowly back toward her with a look of deep honor and respect on his face.
The voice narrates how the soldier stops in front of Dinh, reaches his left hand out to her and takes her right hand. It then continues to describe him bowing reverently, reaching out his other hand and ceremoniously putting his dog tags into her hand.
Their four hands come together and form a loving bond before Dinh reaches up with her left hand to caress the soldier’s cheek... but her hand passes right through his face and back down to her side.
The voice continues to describe how the soldier smiles, bows respectfully one last time and turns and walks away, “It was all I had. I had to give her something. I couldn’t just walk away from this woman whom I had come to love so dearly -- this woman who had shown such pure and unconditional love to another human being. Another human being who would have died out there in that rice paddy if she had not come along.”
Dinh now hears the narrator’s voice coming from behind her. She turns and realizes it is coming through her doorway from the inside of her house. She takes a few steps toward the door, peers in and sees the Landmark Center banquet hall in St. Paul, Minnesota.
She cautiously takes a few steps closer and sees that the narration she hears is being spoken by Patrick Johnson. He is standing at the lectern and addressing the people in attendance at the annual Likewise banquet.
Dinh’s body begins to tingle. She takes a deep breath and walks through the doorway of her farmhouse, as Patrick Johnson continues, “She is my inspiration. She is my motivation. It is as simple as that, people. It is as simple as one human being helping another. This is how we make a difference in our world. That is what I am all about and that is all Likewise will ever be about.”
Patrick Johnson takes a drink of water, and continues, “So, that wonderful woman was my initial inspiration for creating Likewise, but now let me tell you something about how the company started. It was about this time of year thirty years ago that I said goodbye to that loving soul.” Then he stops talking, gets a thoughtful look on his face and looks down at his watch, and continues, “No, it was actually on this very day, thirty years ago that I said goodbye to that loving soul, and then finally made it safely back home here to Minnesota.
“It took me quite some time to readjust to my life after Vietnam. I was lost and confused and aimless... and I had a difficult time letting go of the horrible images that seemed to have free reign over my mind. But, I soon discovered that every time those demons appeared, all I had to do to exorcise them from my mind was to think of that simple sweet old woman who saved my life.
“And often, when I would think about her, a different memory from my childhood would come along side it. This other memory was of another lovely old woman, Mrs. Stephens, who taught me Bible stories in Sunday School when I was a boy. It was one of her stories in particular that became the answer to all of my confusion and aimlessness because it was the story of another man who was confused, and then received the solution to his confusion from the Master Teacher.
“Mrs. Stephens taught us that the man in the story was confused because he knew all of the right answers, but he did not know what to do about them. She said that, one day, the Master Teacher told him a parable to help him figure it all out. Today, we call it the parable of The Good Samaritan.
“Now, I am certain many of you are familiar with this simple parable about a kind stranger who comes to the aid of a poor victim of roadside robbery. On the surface, it is a beautiful illustration of what Likewise is all about, which is being kind enough to go out of our way to help others in need.
“But, tonight I want to follow Mrs. Stephens’ example and reveal the deeper meaning of the story to you, because the essence of Likewise is found in that deeper meaning. She always taught us that the true meaning of all the Bible stories is found in the context of the story, not merely in the story itself.
“So, the context of the parable of The Good Samaritan is in reality a question from a confused young man, like I was. This particular man was a somewhat cocky lawyer who thought he had all the answers, but deep down was profoundly confused about the core issues of life.
“So, he came to the Master Teacher one day, and asked, ‘What must I do to inherit everlasting life?’
“To which the Master replied, ‘You know the Law. How does it read to you?’
“The young lawyer quoted the answers verbatim, ‘Love God wholeheartedly with all your soul and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself.’
“The Master told him that his answer was correct and then advised him to do just that. So now, this created the tension in the story because the young man understood he had to go down deeper, past the correct answers and stare his confusion in the face. And it was there that he discovered he had no idea what love was or who his neighbor was.
“So, being a good lawyer and trying to avoid confronting these issues, he attempts to divert the Master’s train of thought by asking, ‘Who is my neighbor?’
“Now, all of this so far is the context of the story. That situation is what prompted the Master to tell the parable.
“You see, after the Master tells the parable about the poor soul who gets beaten and robbed and left by the side of the road, and then passed up by two religious leaders, and then finally gets helped by a foreigner... after that story, He goes back to the lawyer’s feeble attempt to derail Him, and asks the lawyer, ‘Which of the three proved to be a neighbor to the man?’
“Well, finally, the lawyer’s eyes are beginning to open, and he answers, ‘The one who showed mercy.’ At which the Master finishes His lesson by saying, ‘Go and do likewise.’
“Ladies and gentlemen, that is the reason why I am sharing this story with you tonight. I finally learned that the neighbor in the story is not the beat up man on the side of the road. The neighbor in the story is me. The neighbor in the story is you. We are the ones who are told to, ‘Go and do likewise.’
“Yes, this company, Likewise International, that gets its name from this story is all about helping those in need -- those who are found beaten up by life and left on the side of the road. Yes, that is how we demonstrate our love.
“But, I want you to also know Likewise International cannot do that if we don’t first teach you how to become loving neighbors. You are the ones who are to ‘Go and do likewise.’ But, before you will ever do that, you must first understand that you are the neighbor. You are the ‘Loving Neighbor.’
“This may sound sacrilegious, but I think the title of the parable should be, The Loving Neighbor instead of The Good Samaritan. It is not about being good. And it is not about the Samaritan. It is about being the person who demonstrates love by doing good. It is about the love of God working through us to love others.
“Likewise International is dedicated and devoted to solving the root issue of un-neighborliness between people, as well as the symptom of un-neighborliness, which is all of the beat up people on the side of the road. Our humanitarianism springs forth from our loving-neighborism.
“My dear friends, as we end this fiscal year and begin another, I want you all to understand that my main objective for this company is to equip you all to be loving neighbors who will go across the road and across the world and do Likewise. Thank you.”
Applause fills the room as Daniel walks from the restrooms back into the banquet hall. Sarah looks over at him and smiles as she stands up and joins the rest of the standing ovation. Daniel then senses the car keys in his right hand, but they feel a little odd. So, he looks down, turns his hand upward, slowly opens his fingers and sees a pair of dog tags resting in his palm.
He closes his eyes briefly, takes a deep breath, puts the dog tags into his pocket and walks toward Sarah. Everything seems to be happening in slow motion as Daniel looks over and sees Patrick Johnso
n step away from the lectern and make his way back to his table.
Daniel walks up to Sarah and gives her a hug.
After he releases her, she looks quizzically at him, and says, “Are you Ok? You’re all glassy-eyed.”
Daniel merely smiles and gives her another hug.
As he is holding her, he drifts off into a trance. He is not sure if he is even in the room anymore. He blinks a few times and then looks around the room. He sees Diener standing off to one side of the room, and then he sees Dinah standing not too far away from him. He releases his embrace from Sarah, moves to her side and puts his arm around her. Then he looks over to another part of the hall and sees Danut standing hand-in-hand with Dance. Finally, he continues scanning the room and notices Donna standing a few tables to the side of from them.
They are all smiling and applauding in slow motion with everyone else in the room.
Finally, after searching the entire banquet hall, he looks back over at the doorway that leads to the restrooms. There, he sees Dinh standing with her warm smile pouring out from her loving wizened face.
They all seem to be there with him in the room. But then, one by one, they slowly fade away as he fully returns to the banquet hall with Sarah.
Daniel takes a deep slow breath, and realizes he is finally back home. He is home. He is finally home.
+ - + - + - +
As Daniel returned to his normal everyday routine, he discovered that the memories of his time-traveling adventure began to diminish. No matter how much he tried to keep them in his memory, he realized he was losing them. He concluded that his mind only had enough room for one person’s memories. It was like trying to cram fifty pounds of sand into a five-pound bag. No matter how much he tried, sand was spilling out and he didn’t seem to be able to scoop it up and put it back into his mind.
Sarah was not quite sure what to think of the whole situation, as she watched Daniel struggle with this process for a couple of weeks. She tried to make as much sense of it as she could, but it all seemed so bizarre. All she wanted was to have Daniel back to normal. He was acting a little weird, and she just wanted his old self back.
And, that is what they both got. Daniel focused more on his work; Sarah finished her Master’s degree program; and soon they were both focusing their efforts on making their wedding plans.
+ - + - + - +
“I’m very happy for you. That is all I ever wanted, too.”
“What happened?” asked Daniel.
“Life, I guess,” said the bum, despondently.
Daniel regularly volunteered at the Union Gospel Mission. On this particular day, he happened to be visiting with the bum whom he had helped out that day in the Central Presbyterian Church parking lot.
“I had a girl like yours once,” continued the bum. “I think I know what love is.”
“What happened to her?” asked Daniel.
“I lost her... or she lost me... or maybe the war lost us both,” he said. “I couldn’t find her after I got out of the prison camp.
“I tried to get over it. Really, I did. But, I just couldn’t. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t separate myself from it all.”
“It’s Ok. I get it,” said Daniel.
“I couldn’t hold a job. I couldn’t hold a relationship... and, I wouldn’t let anyone hold me... my mother... my father. As much as they tried, I just would not let them do it. I finally had to just get away from everyone. And, that’s what I’ve done for the last thirty years.”
Daniel had learned that the most helpful thing he could do for a person in this situation was to listen quietly and to be a friend.
“Then I come across this old report from Army Intelligence that they sent to me decades ago. I had given up by then, so I just threw it into a drawer. Never even opened it. But then it resurfaced in some things that my family had left for me when they died, so I finally opened it up. Turns out there was this one girl who fit the circumstances. Apparently, she wound up in a U.S. Medical Missionary clinic. But, then she was whisked away by her parents back to their house. If that was her, I hope she was Ok. I hope she...
“Well, that’s how I wound up here, in Minnesota. I guess the Medical Missionaries returned home here. I was planning to look them up and... well, if they are still here, I was hoping to see if they would talk to me.”
Daniel perked up, and said, “My parents were Medical Missionaries in Vietnam. Maybe they know... ” Then he stopped and looked at the bum, and asked, “What information do you have about them?”
The bum reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an old beat up envelope, and said, “Here.”
Daniel took the papers out of the envelope, unfolded them and began to look at them. When he turned to the second page, he suddenly stopped reading and looked up at the bum.
“What?” said the bum.
“These are my parents. Harry and Sandra Mesinger are my parents,” said Daniel, incredulously. “This is crazy. We have to go see them. We can go and see them. They live right outside of town. It’s not that far. I can take you to see them.”
+ - + - + - +
“Dad, Mom, this is Jacob. He is a friend of mine,” said Daniel. “He really needs to talk to you about when you were back in Vietnam. He is looking for a girl he knew who might have come to your clinic.”
“It was 1970. I was a lieutenant stationed in Da Nang, where your clinic was,” started Jacob. Then he got a somewhat pained look on his face, and continued, “We were captured and put in a prison camp. I never saw her again. When I finally got out, I did look for her, but... ” Tears then replaced his words, but after a few moments, he continued, “Well, she may have come to your clinic. She probably got sick, or something. Reports were filed with the Army and it looks like a girl about her age was... ”
“Oh my God,” gasped Daniel’s mother, looking at her husband. “Oh my God, Harry.”
“Let me see those papers,” said Harry, reaching out to Jacob.
Daniel’s mother started to cry. She stood up and began to pace in the room, “Oh my God. This can’t be.”
Daniel stood up and walked over to her, and said, “What, Mom? What’s wrong?”
“Maybe you had better come back and sit down, Daniel,” said his father.
“Was it my girlfriend?” asked Jacob. “Was she alright? What happened to her? Why was she in your clinic?”
After a long pause, Daniel’s mother said, quietly, “She had a baby.”
A heavy weight of profound silence fell upon the room as they all began to process the information that was filtering through their memories.
Daniel’s voice cracked slightly when he broke the silence, and asked, “Dad... are you saying that Jacob may be my real father?”
Daniel’s mother put her hands up to her eyebrows and then moved them down slowly stroking her cheeks. She looked at Jacob, and said, “We also searched for the girl.”
“We finally found where her parents lived,” said Daniel’s father. “But she was not there. They had taken her back home from the clinic, but then they sent her to live with her mother’s mother, who lived further out in the country on a rice farm. The poor girl was being so shamed by the people in the village that they had to send her away, for her own well-being. Apparently, the girl’s mother’s father had recently died, so they thought the she could be of help on her grandmother’s rice farm.”
+ - + - + - +
“I know,” said Sarah. “But I just think it would be creepy to have him staying here.”
“But he may be my father,” said Daniel. “I can’t just have him living at the mission.”
“But, I’m just not... this is going to be our home, Daniel,” said Sarah. “I haven’t even moved in yet. This is the place where you and I are going to begin our lives together.”
“It just seems so wrong for him to be there,” said Daniel, sitting down and shaking his head.
“I know you love these poor unfortunate souls, Daniel. But... I just don’t know if I can ope
n up my... I just don’t know if I can bring them under our roof.”
Daniel stood up and continued to unpack the boxes that he and Sarah were moving into their new apartment.
“What’s this?” asked Daniel.
Sarah walked over to him, and said, “I don’t know. I thought it was just some ‘new employee tchotchke’ that they handed out at your banquet.”
“These are dog tags,” said Daniel.
“I know,” said Sarah. “I thought it was supposed to be some cute reminder of the story he told after dinner.”
“These say Patrick Johnson,” said Daniel. “Where did they come from?”
“They were in your pants pocket,” answered Sarah. “I just took them out when I did your wash one day.”
“I remember that story,” said Daniel. “Wasn’t he talking about some old lady in a rice field?”
“Yes, I think so,” said Sarah.
“Maybe he knows,” said Daniel. “This is crazy, but maybe he knows where the rice farms are that... I need to talk to him. Maybe he knows where the rice farms are.”
“Daniel,” said Sarah, trying to snap some sense into him. “That was thirty years ago.”
“Yes, but it’s all just too weird,” said Daniel. “Thirty years ago Jacob is in the Army and meets a Vietnamese girl; he gets captured; she gives birth to a baby boy in my parent’s clinic and then is whisked away to her grandmother’s rice farm. And then Patrick Johnson talks about getting rescued by some old lady on a rice farm in Vietnam. This is all just too weird. I gotta find out if these are my real parents.”
+ - + - + - +
“This is all rather amazing,” said Patrick Johnson, as he sat at his desk in his office.
“Tell me about it,” agreed Daniel.
Patrick then continued, thoughtfully, “But, I am relatively certain I could probably find it. I’m fairly sure I remember the general location.” He paused for a moment and then looked at them, and said, “But, are you willing to go all the way over there on a thirty-year-old wild goose chase to find it?”
Daniel looked over at Jacob, and said, “I don’t think we have any choice. We need to know. We need to find her.”
Patrick Johnson thought for a moment, and then said, “Well, then this one is on me, gentlemen. It has been a while since I have checked in on our Vietnam office, so I think maybe we need to go over there and see if this amazing story could possibly be true.”
+ - + - + - +
They arrived in Vietnam slightly before the humid season. Patrick Johnson rented a Jeep and drove Daniel and Jacob toward the area that was his best recollection of where the old woman’s rice farm might be.
After driving way out into a remote farmland area, he pulled the Jeep over onto the side of the road, and said, “This could be it. I’m not 100% sure, but if it’s not, I’m relatively sure we’re close.”
At the first farm that they came to, Patrick said, “This is not it, but maybe we can try to communicate with them about what we are searching for. They might at least be able to lead us in the right direction.” He looked at Jacob, and asked, “How’s your Vietnamese, Jacob?”
“It’s been a while, but I was getting fairly fluent there toward the end of the war,” answered Jacob.
“Well then, between the two of us, we ought to be able to make a decent attempt at getting the information we need,” said Patrick. “Let’s go give it a try.”
Patrick was slightly ahead of Daniel and Jacob as they made their way down a narrow pathway to the farmhouse. As they walked, Jacob looked at Daniel, and said, “I haven’t quite wrapped my head around the possibility of fathering a son... much less the reality of walking right here next to a full-grown version of him.”
Daniel looked at Jacob. Then he looked down at the path and thought for a moment, and said, “I know what you mean. This is all very difficult to process.” He paused for a moment and then looked over at Jacob, and continued, “If you are my father, I’m sorry... ”
Jacob interrupted him and shook his head, and said, “Daniel, you have nothing to apologize for. Please, if anyone needs to apologize, it’s me. I’m the one who... ”
“I just feel bad about not inviting you to stay with me,” said Daniel.
Jacob looked at Daniel and shook his head, and said, “Shit, if you really are my son, I have a lot to be proud of. You are something else. How in the world did you get such a kind and generous heart.”
“Well, if you really are my father, then I guess we’ll have part of the answer to the question,” smiled Daniel. “And hopefully, we’ll find the other part of the answer while we are here.”
The conversation with the farmer was not too difficult for them, and Patrick felt quite confident they were in the right area, and headed in the right direction. As they made their way back to the Jeep, he said, “Ok, men, it looks like we’re headed up that way.” He pointed toward a low hill, and continued, “I have a good feeling about this. I can feel that strong sense of peace that I remember from when I was here thirty years ago.”
It wasn’t long before they made their way down the road and then crested the low hill. Patrick slowed to a stop at the top of the hill and looked out over the rice paddies, and said, “This is it. I can’t believe it. Wow. It hasn’t changed one bit. There’s the farmhouse over there.” He pointed off in the distance, and said, “I think that group of trees over there must be close to where she found me. Wow. This is amazing.”
All three of them jittered in anticipation of what they might discover in that simple farmhouse off in the distance. Patrick’s memories took him back to the kindly old Asian woman who saved his life. Jacob’s memories took him back to his soul mate, the girl he fell in love with in the marketplace. And Daniel didn’t know why, but he felt as though he had memories of this place as well. The thought of possibly meeting his mother made his knees feel like rubber.
As they walked down the narrow path toward the farmhouse, Jacob scoured the area for any sign of his long lost love. When they were about halfway down the path, a woman emerged from the house carrying a bucket of cleaning water. She stopped at the edge of the steps and looked up at a white crane flying gracefully across the sky above her.
Jacob trembled, and whispered, “Singh,” as she walked over and tossed the water out of the bucket.
Daniel looked at Jacob. Tears were pouring down his cheeks, “Singh!” he cried out, as he made his way quickly down the path toward the farmhouse, “Singh!” he cried again.
The woman looked out at Jacob running toward her and dropped the bucket at her feet. “Jacob?” she whispered, and then dropped to her knees. She reached out her arms, and cried, “Jacob!”
Daniel and Patrick just stood there transfixed by the storybook reunion that was unfolding right before their very eyes.
“Well,” said Daniel. “I guess I’d better go down there and meet my father and mother.”
“Do you think it really is them?” asked Patrick, but Daniel was already making his way down the path toward them.
Jacob raised Singh back to her feet and hugged her tightly. She buried her teary cheeks in his shoulder. Then she lifted her head, looked over Jacob’s shoulder and saw the young man walking down the path toward her. She felt a slight cramp in her womb and her chest began to quiver short breaths in and out through her nose.
She slowly separated herself from Jacob and started to walk toward Daniel. Jacob turned around and saw their first embrace as mother and son. Then he walked up to them, put his arms around both of them and held them as though he would never let them go.
Several hours of reunion took place that afternoon, after which it was decided that Jacob and Daniel would stay there with Singh, and Patrick would return the next day to pick them up and take them back to the airport.
As Patrick walked back to the Jeep, he could not stop shaking his head in amazement over the uncanny turn of events he had participated in that day.
Later that evening, while the reunited family was e
ating supper in Singh’s house, Daniel looked over and noticed an empty peg sticking out of the wall close to the doorway. After supper, while Jacob and Singh were occupied with the task of cleaning up after the meal, Daniel walked over toward the door and gazed longingly out at the balmy summer evening. While he was enjoying a few deep breaths of the evening air, he casually reached into his pocket and grasped Patrick Johnson’s dog tags in his hand. He pulled them out and looked down at them. Then he slowly, and somewhat ceremoniously lifted them up and hung them on the peg by the doorway.
+ - + - + - +
It did not take Jacob Lomas longer than that one night, reunited with his long lost love, to realize his home was not back in the U.S. His home was right there, in that humble farmhouse, side-by-side with the other half of his soul. And, while it pained both he and Singh that they would be separated from their boy, they knew deep down that the place for both of them was right there, working day-by-day with each other in the rice fields.
They spoke to each other quietly that night and realized it was completely out of their control that a season of their lives had relentlessly passed. They did know they would see him again, but for now they embraced each other, and they embraced the gift of being free to simply live out the rest of their lives together in the peacefulness of a Vietnamese rice farm.
“Well, my little lily blossom,” said Jacob, tenderly, as he cleared Singh’s jet-black hair away from her forehead. “We never had a nest of our own, full or empty, but we do have the treasured gift of knowing that somehow we have released our own baby bird off into the sky. He is like those cranes that you love to watch flying overhead every day. Now we get to watch them and think of him. We get to think of him soaring away over the rice fields to build a nest of his own.”
+ - + - + - +
“How is this even possible, Daniel?” sighed Sarah, as she watched their children playing out in the garden next to all four of Daniel’s parents. “How?”
Daniel sighed in agreement.
Harry and Sandra Mesinger were getting older, but they never missed their annual opportunity to be a part of the family reunion at the old farmhouse in Vietnam.
Over the years, Daniel became the logical candidate to oversee operations at the Likewise headquarters in Da Nang. Patrick Johnson knew this would afford him as many opportunities as possible to spend time with the parents from whom he had been separated for the first three decades of his life.
Daniel looked over and caught Sarah smiling at him. “What?” he said.
Sarah looked back out at the grandparents playing with their children, and said, “I just love finally seeing how you resemble your parents. There is so much of your beautiful mother in that handsome face of yours.”
“Well, thankfully our children got their looks from their mother, too,” smiled Daniel.
“I just so love these opportunities we have to bring the family out here every year,” sighed Sarah. “This place is so peaceful and serene.”