Vietnam Babylift Personal Stories
This February I began a journey that I have been
planning and dreaming of for over 20 years. A journey to the land of my youngest
son's birth place, Vietnam. Many times over the years, I plotted how a trip
to Vietnam would take place. My husband and I would take our son Tam and together
we would explore his heritage. In my musings, I envisaged us travelling from
one end of the country to the other. Visiting villages and cities, tasting
the food, smelling and absorbing the essence of the culture and marveling
again and again, how a tiny baby came so far to Canada to become the core
of our family.
I wanted to watch his face as he rediscovered and reclaimed his homeland.
Would he feel an alien, not speaking the language, transported to another
world for the second time? Would he be at ease in a country where he was no
longer a minority? But ah, we would be there to sustain him, nurture him,
and to ease his confusion. What would he truly think and feel?
Today, however, I am in Vietnam, without my husband and son, waiting for my
eldest daughter to arrive from Nepal where she has worked for the past five
years. This is not how I imagined my visit to my son's birth country would
be. How ironic that the child born and raised in Toronto is now living her
life in Asia and the child born in Vietnam will never be well enough to leave
his adopted country.
This morning was spent in Ho Chi Minh City with Irene Dewarty at the Phu My
Orphanage. Irene, who was formally in the fashion business in Paris, came
originally to Thailand to volunteer for a few months and stayed. She has been
the director here for several years and has adopted a Cambodian boy, who is
now eight. There are 268 disabled children at the orphanage, 90% have been
reluctantly abandoned by parents unable to care for their children in a country
without resources for exceptional children.
It is a clean, well run institution without enough staff and a constant need
for funds and medicine. How many of us, who adopted children from Vietnam
remember Rosemary Taylor from Australia and Sandra Simpson, Bonnie Cappiccino
and Naomi Bronstein from Canada. Strong women, still all working for children.
Rosemary in Thailand and Vietnam, Sandra in Bangladesh, Bonnie in India and
Nepal and Naomi in Cambodia and now Guatemala. Do we have young crusaders
to follow these women? The need is still there for children at home and abroad
to have champions to care for them. Standing in the courtyard it all flooded
back to me as if it were 1975 and I wept.
Our son Tam's orphanage building no longer exists. I'm not even sure which
of Rosemary's homes he was in. It doesn't really matter, just as finding a
diagnosis after his first stroke at age seven became a mute point. Tam's world
changed forever when he was brought to Canada, as did our lives. Nothing was
going to be a cure for Tam nor change what our entire family has had to deal
with over the years. Standing on Vietnamese soil and talking to the people
and feeling and tasting the very being of the country is what I came to see.
His heritage will always be intertwined with mine and I had to experience
his culture first hand.
Did I rejoice when our child arrived in 1975 and forget the others left behind?
I'd like to think I didn't. I'd like to think that sponsoring South East Asian
refugees and now Bosnian and Burmese refugees and helping them to resettle
in Canada was a small way to repay the gift of Tam that was given to us. Was
this enough? Of course not.
Tam has been a part of our family for 23 years and yet standing here it seems
as if only a moment has gone by since that tiny babe was placed in our anxious
arms. He weighed only 9 pounds and looked like a plucked chicken, all head
and little bones with hanging skin that bled when you touched it. What a roller
coaster life he has given us!!
Our family grew to seven children, all unique and special in their own way.
They are adults now and on their own journey of life. In my work with adult
adoptees and birth relatives, we talk a lot about reunions and closure. "I
found my birth mother/sibs and I felt as if the circle was complete."
I realize being in Vietnam is part of my closure. Adoptive parents need closure
also. I needed to go to the land of my son's birth, just as I continued my
journey to Burma (Myanmar) to visit relatives of another son and go to Trinidad
to visit the home of our daughter-in-law.
It has taken me 23 years to get here and I am incredibly sad that my son,
who has lost most of his brain stem, is not even able to be aware that I am
here. I wish I was clinging to my husband's hand for support. I need his arms
around me to sustain me. Will I be able to help him visualize what I have
experienced? It is his selflessness that has enabled me to be here. It is
his willingness to care for our two medically fragile young adults for 5 weeks
and his encouragement that I should seize this opportunity to make this pilgrimage
that has finally brought a fruition of my dream to come to Vietnam.
Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)
February 5, 1998
Note: This was given by our 36 year old son Colin on
the occasion of Tam's funeral.
I am primarily here today to give thanks. Thanks to everyone here for being
a part of Tam's life. Thanks to Tam for the blessing of his life.
Tam flew over to Canada from Vietnam, literally a gift from the sky. He arrived at the Sick Kid's Hospital in Toronto weighing only 9 pounds at 1 year of age. He was in the hospital a month before he was well enough to join his new family. Unfortunately, hospital stays would be a too common feature in the rest of Tam's life.
From the beginning, we recognized in Tam a magical personality that drew people to him. By unspoken consensus, he was the heart of our family. I believe he will continue to be that heart. We were pulled around his orbit for so many years, like planets around a bright sun. For those who loved and took care of Tam, I suspect you also felt the influence of his gravity.
As children, many of our happiest times were spent at our cottage on Georgian Bay. Tam loved swimming in the bay, building sand castles, and sitting in front of the fireplace.
I remember all the games we used to play. One of his favourite boardgames was called Sorry and Tam thought it was so funny to say "I'm sorry" as he soundly beat you at that game. I remember how he would throw a blanket over his head and pretend to be a ghost to scare you, and sitting with him on our living room couch taking turns blowing a feather back and forth between us.
Tam loved to snuggle in bed and have stories read to him. When Mom would get tired of reading "Winky the Wacky Witch" for the hundredth time, she would sing Tam to sleep.
Mischevious is a word that could certainly be applied to Tam. The stories about Tam's exploits are endless. There was the time he fed the entire contents of our fridge to the dog, and he dumped an entire container of fish food into the Sindrey's fish tank, killing all of their fish. Mom told me how he squirted toothpaste over all the clothes in Marilyn Phillips closet, and lit a fire in the kindling box rather than in the fireplace.
Tam would have been 30 this June 12th. I count it a miracle that we had him around us for as long as we did. We have lived with the real possibility of Tam dying for over 20 years. We learned to cope with the temper tantrums, the hospital stays, the multiple brushes with death, while he had to learn to cope with the severe physical challenges. Yet Tam always defied the doctor's predictions with his stubbornness and powers of recovery.
My world has changed. I now live in a world without Tam here before me yet a world with Tam still in my heart. I know I will learn to cope with Tam gone. What I still find hard to think about is the actual leaving. Tam being taken away from us; we being taken away from Tam. Tam now as an influence, as many fond memories. Tam not a burning sun now, but an invisible gravity.
Tam was a connoisseur of noise. He loved to listen to music for hours. And it would not be enough just to turn up his record player to the maximum volume. He would precede his listening sessions with a well practiced slam of his bedroom door. Then he would put his finger on the record and spin it faster and faster. You knew which songs were his favourite when he would start banging his fist or foot on the floor to keep time.
Does your family hold on to their dinner dishes and cutlery when singing grace? Tam's favourite grace was singing Johnny Appleseed and he would get us all to sing it at the top of our lungs while he would wind up, give a few practice swings of his arm, and deliver the coupe de grace by pounding his fist on the table on the final "Amen." The bangs were so loud that Cassandra's knees would rise up involuntarily to hit the bottom of the dinner table.
Tam did everything with a lot of verve. He even had a unique way of disrobing. Every item of clothing, including potentially lethal shoes, would be taken off and then flung heedlessly across the room. When he started running, he would often have trouble stopping. One time he ran right through the kitchen screen door. Another time he ran down the hallway, bounced off the closed bathroom door, and fell down the back stairs. He survived that without a mark on him.
His tenacity would often scare us. After his stroke left him partially paralyzed, he would still walk up and down the stairs with just one hand and one foot. He could even climb into my bunk bed with just the use of his right arm. When these feats became impossible, Tam would just find another way to have fun. He took to sliding down the stairs headfirst on his back, laughing as he bumped his head on each step. When he could no longer reach my bed, he would wake me at five in the morning saying "I love you" as he emptied all of my dresser drawers of their clothes.
Tam did not like going to sleep. He seemed determined to stay awake at all times and was really quite good at it. However, there were many interesting places where we have found him asleep - with his head on a spinning record player, halfway climbing onto a couch, in the bathroom sink with the water running, and at the dinner table with his head in a plate of food. One of Tam's favourite activities while he was awake and others were sleeping was tickling their feet. We all used to try to avoid his early morning wake-up calls by giving him permission to go tickle the feet of the parent or sibling in the next room.
Tam was not unkind. He would often console Mom when she would start crying in frustration with him. His hugs could turn into asphyxiating chokeholds. He would rub your kisses off his face and do anything to avoid them. He would laugh hysterically at your coughs and sneezes. Yet you always knew that he loved you.
For Cassandra, Tam was the older brother she felt protective towards; an example of strength and courage she will always remember. She remembers Tam climbing into her electric wheelchair and then driving it around her bedroom, leaving holes in all four walls. This kind of damage was common, especially during Tam's temper tantrums. Dad remembers repairing the holes in the wall plaster and the broken windows caused by his violent outbursts. Yet Mom felt a sadness when Tam stopped raging. As if he had resigned himself to the overwhelming fact of his deteriorating body.
Two days before Tam died, Hilary and I heard a Raffi song playing incongruously on a pop radio station. It was one of Tam's favourite songs - Shake Your Sillies Out - and Hilary cranked it up with delight just like Tam used to.
I believe we all have gifts to give. And a community is a place where everyone's gifts are given. Thank-you for being Tam's community; and thank-you Tam for giving your gifts of kindness and enthusiasm, stubbornness and strength.
We all had our own way of loving Tam. I want to say thank-you especially to Mom for fighting so hard for Tam his entire life. And thank-you Dad, for being there so much for Tam, when we kids could not always be there. I also want to thank those who comforted Tam during his last time in the hospital and everyone who ever held his hand.
We may say that Tam's body betrayed him. That he was trapped inside a body that slowly fell apart. But this body was his life. And he lived it as fully as he could. He was determined not to let anything get in his way. He struggled with it, he raged against it, but he rarely complained.
Tam and I grew up together and he has influenced me in ways too deep to describe. He is no longer there to grab my hand and not let go. He will no longer poke me painfully in the ribs to get my attention. I cannot sing or read to him anymore. Those opportunities are gone. But there will be similar opportunities with other people, and I hope Tam has taught me to respond to those opportunities with truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.
Tam was not just my brother. He was your brother; he was your son. He was your cousin and he was your friend. Tam loved me. And I know you are here because he loved you too.
Note: This was given by our 40 year old daughter Jill
who lives and works in East Timor and managed to get home in time for the
funeral after 4 days of travel.
Tam Douglas Umbach
29 May 2004
My brother was the toughest, most stubborn person I have ever met. He had
a wicked temper and was a head banging sensation. He had a tenacious hold
on life and a high tolerance of pain.
Life is full of pain and suffering.
How you live your life in the understanding of this is the test of who you
are.
He fought hard for his life.
Many of us have never had to do that in the same way.
We have never been born in a war zone and abandoned.
Survived the war to then come face-to-face with a disease that would rob us
of our eyesight, speech and mobility.
Many of us grumble about what life has given us.
Tam was no exception.
He was sad and frustrated with his disease.
One night when he was around 9 years old we curled up together before bed.
He told me he was very sad about what was happening to him and our family.
We cried together.
In destroying my innocence that everything in life is nice
and about me, he also taught me at a very young age that preparing for death
is part of living.
23 years of living with the fear of losing him is a long time to study this
lesson.
During those years, he has tested me more than anyone else in my life.
To accept the pain of slowly losing someone.
To not wait for death, but enjoy life.
To appreciate the love of my family and friends.
To demand compassion, understanding and tolerance from myself as well as others.
Tam changed me profoundly.
He is responsible for shaping who I am and what I do with my life.
So many rituals exist in my family that revolved around Tam.
Midnight ramblings and flooding bathrooms
Singing grace triumphantly while thumping the dinner table.
Hand clapping and dancing whenever the spirit moves you.
Family water fights.
Breaking hospital rules.
"Please return to 4 West"
Long car rides to the cottage with non-stop singing.
"Sing it really fast"
"Sing it really slow"
At times he made me laugh because it was so easy to make him
laugh.
Stub a toe.
Cry out 'ouch'.
Say 'sorry'.
Sing a song.
Threaten to Kiss him.
Kiss him and he would wipe it off.
The hand arching out slowly and swiping at his face.
Then his slow grin and commanding 'No'.
Moving towards this day has taken 23 years of my life.
I urge you to:
Overcome an old fear
Accept suffering and live life
Fight for your principles
Don't be so hard on yourself or others
Forget an old grudge
Express your gratitude by being compassionate and tolerant
Tell someone you love them
Tell them again
And again
And again
Skimery-rinky-dinky-do
I love you
Tam Douglas
T.D.
Tea Leaves
Beetle BombHand squeezed Tight
1-2-3
Let go.
Jill Umbach