Today Lane and I finished a book of poetry that tells the story of a ten year old girl escaping Saigon with her family and arriving in Alabama, replete with racism and bullying, but also kindness and generosity. I shared with Lane the story of Kamsing and Thoumma, who arrived in my hometown when I was in high school, sponsored by our church. They had escaped Laos by swimming across the Mekong River with their young children strapped to their backs. They then spent several years in the same Thai refugee camp that my sister, Jean had worked in a few years before. Even as a self centered teenager, I was in awe of their profound bravery and sacrifice, as well as the compassionate outpouring of our church. It was my brothers, as teenagers, who taught them to drive - and my mother who, among other things, bought Thoumma's homemade spring rolls to support her fledgling enterprise. Tragically, Kamsing died five years after arriving in the US - he had a massive heart attack that was caused, no doubt, by the stress of war and escape and holding a family together on foreign soil. Today, Thoumma is happily remarried and her kids, now in their 30's, are college educated, married, and living the American Dream.
