My twin brother Tyler and I never really got to know our mother's family. Dad played baseball until his knee gave out and then he started coaching…and that meant we went wherever he did. Mom was…she was his biggest fan and never missed a game. Not even we they were on the road. She would load us up in the car and take us to the games. I can't say that I hated baseball, but it never really interested me. Tyler was pretty much the same way. We went to the games and we cheered, because it was expected of us, but we would rather have had Dad at home and not have to move every couple of years.
We had heard stories about Mom's family and met several of them once or twice, but to us it was never really enough. We were jealous of our cousins and the close relationship they had not only with each other but with grandparents, aunts and uncles as well. I asked about going one summer, but Mom told me that we had cheer for Dad. To us family vacation meant Spring Training and a weekend trip was for a road game. Since baseball season interfered with school, Mom taught us herself.
Tyler was drafted to go fight in Vietnam shortly after we turned eighteen and I enlisted as an ambulance driver. If he was going, then I was going to go too. I was not about to be left at home to deal with Mom and Dad alone. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw there…words could not describe…
As soon as Tyler and I had a long enough leave we went home. He only stayed one night with our parents, opting instead to go see an old sweetheart. I found out nearly a year later that she had given birth to a child…Tyler's daughter.
Ty never got the chance to see or hold his daughter. His helicopter went down one day on a routine mission. There were no survivors. My ambulance happened to be one of the ones that responded to the scene. When they pulled his body from the wreckage, I knelt beside him and held my twin close as I sobbed. The others must have understood because no one tried to stop me or pull me away. I was later given permission to take my brother's body home. The funeral was attending by Mom and Dad's baseball friends and a few family members that I barely remembered. I tried to go see Tyler's daughter, but her mother had taken her and disappeared, leaving no word of where she was going.
As soon as I returned to Vietnam, I threw myself into my work, trying to save as many of those soldiers as I could. I didn't want any more children to loose their daddies…not on my watch. My days off were spent working in a local orphanage where I grew to love the children. They were victims of this bloody war as much as Tyler was.
One day I went to the orphanage I found the building burned and many of the children I had come to adore had been killed. You see, many of these innocents were the children of Vietnamese women and American soldiers, given up at birth. Barely able to see through my tears, I turned to go back to my base for help in burying them when I heard a soft mewing sound. Under the dead bodies of one of the nurses, I found a baby boy…alive, but barely. Scooping him up into my arms, I ran as fast as I could for the base. The baby, who I called Tyler, pulled through and I began the process of trying to officially adopting him by claiming that he was my brother's child. After months and months and miles of red tape, little Tyler was mine and I was allowed to take him home.
I knew it wouldn't be easy raising this child in the States, but I knew his little life had been spared for a reason…and he had given meaning to mine once again. In this first few days after I brought him to the base I was at his side every spare minutes…holding him, talking to him, changing him…anything that needed to be done. I poured my life into saving his.
While I was in Vietnam, I corresponded with one of the few friends I had while growing up…the son of another baseball player. He had done his time in Vietnam and lost his leg. When my brother died, he had been there for the funeral to support me and it had been his strong arm that had held me as I sobbed my way through the day. I had begun to value his friendship more than I valued my relationship with my parents. When I found out that I was bringing my son home to the State, I called Joe and he met me at the airport, asking if he could marry me. Up until that moment I had not realized that I did love him. We were married a few weeks later in a simple ceremony in his family's home. My parents came and gave me the pearls that my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother had all worn on their wedding days. It was strange to wear something that had been such a part of my family history when I didn't really feel like part of that family myself.