Meeting My Sister from Vietnam in Detroit Day 1!

My Dad served in Vietnam with the US Army from 1970 to 1971. He joked a few times growing up that I might have some half brothers and sisters in Vietnam. Through years of researching online, Thuy found me through family trees on ancestry.com which had led to my uncle who then connected her with me for the DNA test. When I read the email she sent me asking to take the test, I immediately knew it was true before I was halfway through. Not coincidently, my wife @laurabanfield had bought us DNA tests for Christmas which we had not used for three months.

After just four weeks or so from taking the test, Thuy and I just matched at 21% on 23andme. A 21% match indicates a half sibling meaning we share one parent the same. With such a long wait to find her father, she booked a trip the first chance she got to come meet our father's family for Memorial Day weekend in Detroit because most of Dad's family is here still while he has passed on.

I write this I am flying to Detroit to meet Thuy because this is where Dad's family is from and I usually make a visit once a year (Note that I am now editing the original post about seven hours after I wrote it). As another of my sisters prepares for the meeting, she recommended I watch The Lost Children of Vietnam. I downloaded it this morning to my iPhone with Amazon Prime Video and watched it just a few minutes before writing this on the flight which I did.

After crying three times already this morning while feeling the emotions especially related to meeting Thuy, missing Dad, and leaving my eight month pregnant wife @laurabanfield behind with our daughter Madeleine in the new home we just bought and moved into last week, the fourth cry on the plane hit me with the most force. Note that I often cry every day or every other day whenever I experience significant discomfort instead of getting angry or numbing/avoiding the growing pains. To keep a piece of what some might call my dwindling man card, immediately after finishing the video I rested my head against the window in the front row to somewhat hide my face and feel safe.

I began thinking about everything related to this trip and invited Dad’s spirit to spark in my heart. “Show me everything” I said. As the tears began flooding out we started on Dad's death bed with his soul floating out of his cancer filled 63 year old body at the hospice. I saw him with me as I played Battlefield 4 with my friends on Xbox and got the call from Mom that he died. I saw him look in on each of my sisters that he had not seen in years (or maybe since before birth with Thuy) and their families. I saw him reunited with his father in a complete soul bonding. I watched him welcome his mother from her deathbed to make the crossover and watching us at the funeral. I saw him in the delivery room for my daughters birth. I watched him haunt me from his point of view as I screamed at him drunk a few months after he died.

I saw him walk me into my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting since 21 years old and show me how thankful he was after the meeting as I cried and felt the prayers for me after the meeting. I saw him helping Thuy and her husband with their search for him. I watched him listen to all my prayers in early sobriety and even posses my body as I drove by the liquor store in early sobriety with knowing I had to go in unless he drove the car. I watched him guide my words talking and listening to my mother through our grief. I saw him share his life with me as I felt rage at how he hit me and screamed at me as a child while I swore I would never do that to my child. I experienced some of his life in response to asking how he could have done that to me and now I understand.

I asked him to show me more and he showed me Vietnam where I saw a girl he loved get blown up by a bomb in a bar in front of him while she sang. I watched as he sat on his bed cursing at God for creating a life like this. I got brief visions of horrible cruelty as his fellow soldiers went through a village and slaughtered the people there for having killed one of their own despite Dad's protests. I watched him have an argument with my mother and then try to take his own life only to have my mother revive him before the ambulance arrived. As I zoomed out from this picture, I heard God asking me if I was sure this was the family I wanted to be born into because I got to see all this before I chose my mother and father as parents. I said yes! They need me and I will learn so much with them!

In coming out of this experience on the plane, I found this body a mess of tears running all over my shirt. Fortunately, the napkin the stewardess had given me the hour before was perfectly placed and I also thought to bring a little kleenex. I still feel disoriented as I write this just a few minutes after it happened with the mind world still reloading as the plane lands. I scrambled to put this in Evernote as fast as I could before I forget most of the details because the more of these experiences I read the more open I am to mine. Here is a photo right afterwards.

I have had many experiences like this since getting sober, praying, and asking for help. I am grateful for the chance to share this one with you today because I love reading about what I am calling a "spiritual experience." Every story like this reminds me what is real and what lasts forever in a world of this too shall pass. Our love, connections, and relationships are why we are here. The more I remember this the better my life is and the easier each lesson is for me to learn and even enjoy.

I love Steem because we have a place here to share stories like this and have the tools to help build our relationships directly with each other while maintaining the value we create. Thank you for reading about the beginning of my trip to Detroit to visit my family and meet Thuy for he first time! This is the first chapter of this story I have to share and the second is available now at https://steemit.com/family/@jerrybanfield/first-meeting-with-my-sister-from-vietnam-in-farmington-michigan-day-2.

Love,
Jerry Banfield