I was walking through the orphanage filled with tiny children and came upon a girl about two months old. She was wailing, and I thought my eardrums would burst. It seemed she was crying from hunger, but as I picked her up and felt her heaviness, I wondered if something more was behind her tears, a sadness, maybe, at having been left there. Looking at her, I thought, I know exactly how you feel.
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I heard my husband, Randy, call me. "You've got to come here," he said. He had the strangest look on his face. I put the girl down and followed Randy to an adjoining room. A little boy was sitting on a woven mat. He was wearing a blue suit and white crocheted booties. He was all alone. As soon as I saw him, I knew. He was about to change our life. He was born Vinh Thien to a mother who couldn't afford to raise him.
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She already had three children who lived with her parents, chicken farmers in Phu Thanh, a rural, impoverished area in central Vietnam. When the young woman discovered she was pregnant again, her parents refused to take the child in. So, a few months after Vinh was born, she left him at the orphanage and vanished. "Mom," I heard Crista, our daughter, say beside me as we stared at him, "can you believe this baby?"He was beautiful, tiny and soft, with huge cheeks and meaty thighs, the only plump kid in a country of thin people.
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I picked him up, and immediately I was overwhelmed. I had met at least 50 children that morning. Our friends Marvin and Carol Harlan, who supported this place and had adopted their daughter, Kylie, from Vietnam, had invited us to visit the orphanage with them. After Jantsen died, we'd established a memorial fund in his name, and donations totaling $25,000 had come in from people within our close-knit town of Neosho, Missouri.
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We'd been searching for the right way to use that money. We wanted to make our son proud. Marvin and Carol thought we ought to see this place. It needed help. I picked up most of the children that day and wanted to hold all of them. They were so alone; each was so interesting. But there was something about Vinh—I couldn't explain it. As he settled into me, resting his head on my shoulder, I looked up to see Randy and Crista watching me. Tears began falling down my face, tears of hope, not misery. I felt I was exactly where I belonged. I had a sense of purpose I hadn't experienced in ages.
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I took Vinh and went outside, down a stairwell, and into the courtyard. For the rest of the day, I carried him. None of us could stay apart from him for the remainder of our three days in Phan Rang. Randy, Crista, and I would elbow one another out of the way so that we would each be the one to feed him his bottle or rock him to sleep. We were like bratty siblings wrestling over the TV remote. "It's my turn," Randy would say as I held Vinh. "Too bad," I'd say. "I was here first." "Why do you still get to hold him?" Crista would say. "I found him!"
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There was plenty to do, of course, when Vinh wasn't with me. I had experience as a hairdresser, so I bought a pair of scissors at a grocery store, and in the evenings, the older kids lined up so I could cut their hair. As I looked at the children around me, I realized I would never have come to Vietnam if it weren't for the loss of my son. A day doesn't pass that I don't replay that moment in my mind as if it had happened yesterday. As if it were happening now. And I think, all the time, about how much I love him. "I am right here," I whisper to Jantsen. We're in a hospital room. It's cold and impersonal.
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It's June 16, 1999. Pressing my body close to his, I lay my head on his chest and touch his face, feeling the soft stubble of hair on his 15-year-old cheeks. I will his chest to move, for his lungs to fill with air. But I sense nothing except a gaping emptiness and my deep, gnawing desire to change what is happening. I can't make sense of it. My sister Cheryl had called me at the hair salon around 1 p.m. that day. "Come quick," she said. "It's Jantsen."After football practice, Jantsen and Darius, Cheryl's son, were watching a movie at her house. She walked into the room at one point and said something to Jantsen. He didn't answer her. He didn't even move. She tried to shake him awake, but still he didn't move. She and several others went into emergency mode.
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They gave him CPR and called an ambulance. He was taken to the hospital. The minister from our church appears in front of me before I reach Jantsen. He takes my hands in his. I am screaming silently: Please, God, just let him be alive. Let him be brain-damaged if you need to, but just let him be alive. I will take care of him. Give him back to me!
.Now the doctor approaches. He has bad news, he says. Something about Jantsen's heart. Then I hear the blunt words: "He is dead." I look at Randy, standing just a few feet away. The floor gives way beneath me, and a million thoughts ricochet inside my head. How can I live without my baby boy, the child I carried for nine months inside my own body and have taken care of ever since? I feel a sickness spreading through me like acid, and I think that I am going to die, too, right here in this hospital. A thought takes hold: Jantsen needs me. I ask to see him and run quickly down a fluorescent hallway.
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His body lies on a cold table. "I am right here," I whisper to him. I lean over him, taking in every detail. How cruel that I was not here earlier when the doctors were working on him. I could've told him how much I loved him. Did I say that to him the last time we spoke? I think not—I think we argued. Something about leaving his baseball glove out in the rain. I lay my cheek on his skin, trying to cover him. Another doctor comes in. I'm still focused on my son when I feel a hand on my back and hear someone apologizing. Jantsen is dead. Now my father, Joe, is next to me. I notice how red his face is, how puffy his eyes are. He speaks in a weak, tortured voice. "We did everything we could, Pam. We got to him quickly. We tried to save him." "Of course you did," I say, holding on to the most stoic man I know. They all did. He, my sister, my brother-in-law—each of them gave Jantsen CPR, trying to pass on their breath to him. It must've been so scary for them. Yet what a blessing for Jantsen that he was in a familiar place, with people who adored him, who would have given their lives for him. Though it's June, my blood feels like ice.
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We leave the hospital and walk to the parking lot, and I look for my daughter, Crista. In the car, I lay my head on her lap. Together, she, Randy, and I head home—but it no longer feels like that. In the months since that day, I had lost at least 15 pounds. Even during dinner at my parents' house the night before Randy, Crista, and I left for Vietnam, I hadn't been able to eat more than a few bites. But now, in this country, with my life seeming to begin again, I couldn't wait to eat.
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Every morning, I'd find a new place to try the pho soup, a spicy chicken broth with flat rice noodles, into which I'd squeeze the juice of two limes and add a thick bunch of mint. In the evenings, I'd start every meal with spring rolls wrapped in pieces of lettuce and cucumber and dipped in tangy ginger sauce. Then we'd dig into bowls of hot vegetables and rice, or a whole fish, caught earlier that day. During meals, all we talked about was Vinh. The second evening after meeting him, Randy said what we were thinking: "That child is ours."It's hard to explain to people who have never adopted, but sometimes there are moments when you just know. "What is it about him exactly?" Randy asked as we sat on the balcony of our hotel room watching the city of Phan Rang prepare for sleep. "I have no idea," I replied. "But he's amazing.""I know he is," Randy said. "I know it right now."It felt bizarre and terrifying. We could never, ever replace Jantsen. And the thought of adopting again had not occurred to me (we'd adopted Crista in the United States when she was a baby). I was pretty sure Randy felt the same way. But of the three of us, Crista was the most adamant, giving language to our feelings. "Why would we not adopt Vinh?" she said one morning. "He has nobody else in this whole world who truly cares about him. Look at everything we have. Why would you not be the mom and dad to this baby?"
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The answer was perhaps apparent the next morning, when I woke up sobbing so hard, I could barely lift my head from the pillow. It was Jantsen's 16th birthday. He'd now been gone from us for five months.Randy came close to me, and the two of us held each other. He whispered a few prayers in my ear before we heard Crista waking up. She joined us in the bed. My good friend Traci had sent a package for Crista to open on this day, and after she unwrapped a beautiful, delicate music box, we held tight to one another, feeling again how much we had lost. Eventually I pulled myself together, and we headed out toward the orphanage. It was our last day before we'd travel north to Hanoi for a short time, and I was filled with dread at having to say goodbye to Vinh.
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The day before, I asked someone where I might find a bakery. On the way to the orphanage, we hunted for the address among barbershops, cafés, and shops selling silks and cell phones. Finally we found it, and I placed an order. Now I was back, and a woman handed me what looked like a wedding cake—it had big, greasy yellow and red flowers that outlined the words Happy Birthday Jantsen—and told me I owed her $7. I would have paid anything for this simple gesture in memory of my son's birthday. We carried the cake to the orphanage, and after lunch, we celebrated with the kids. As I fed Vinh a piece, I knew that I loved this little boy. It was just as Randy had described it: an unquestionable sense of knowing. The feelings I was experiencing about Vinh were more powerful than my fears. More powerful, in fact, than I was. I can do this, I thought. I am close to 40 now, but even with all I have lost, I still have love to give. I took Vinh from Randy and whispered a promise to him. "We're going to come back to get you, Son."On March 22, 2000, I wrote a note to Jantsen, something I'd been doing every once in a while as a way of keeping him close.
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Dear Jantsen, I still feel like I am standing on a riverbank and the water is rushing by. The river seems deep and wide. But so be it. Your dad, Crista, and I have decided to take the leap of faith. We're diving in. I love you, Mom.
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We started the process to adopt Van Alan Cope, the name we'd chosen for Vinh, as soon as we got home. When we told people about our decision, most of them looked at us as if we'd lost our minds. "Everybody says you're not even supposed to change your hairstyle when you're in an emotional state," a friend said. "Certainly you shouldn't make a decision like this right now." The grief books agreed. One had even listed the different "levels of grief" we might expect to follow, assigning a certain amount of time to be spent at each. It was as if we had entered an alien universe inhabited solely by grieving people and had to solve clues or take over enough planets before the leader would let us graduate to the next level. To ease the tension, Randy and I began joking about it.
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Once, he came home to find me on the kitchen floor, holding Jantsen's photo and sobbing. "Pam," he said, taking me in his arms, "this is very 'Level Two' behavior. Our leader will not be pleased."I was soon laughing so hard, I could barely breathe. In the end, Randy ignored all the books. "Let them say what they want," he said. The darkness that had been in his eyes was beginning to fade. He came in from mowing the lawn one day and said, "It's weird. I just caught myself whistling in the garage. I haven't done that since Jantsen died. Maybe I'm feeling hopeful again." The idea that Randy could be happy once more was enough to make me do my best to ignore all the books too. But I was still struggling with my emotions. As attached as I felt to Vinh, I would cling to sadness if it would keep Jantsen close to me. I wondered, Could we do this? Was adopting a child right for our family, especially now? Could I truly and properly take care of another child?
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One afternoon, I went to my room and sat down in my gold wingback chair. On the end table was Van's photo. I took it and held it in my hands, staring at his sweet face. What would his future be like if we didn't adopt him? Saying no to him meant he'd likely stay at the orphanage for the rest of his childhood, never getting a good education or enough to eat, never knowing that somebody loved him completely. Without us, his future was hopeless. And what would my future be like if we didn't adopt him? I wanted to live a life of meaning and grace. Despite all we'd been through, I felt that God had led us to Van. We had a choice: to walk through this door and find new meaning in our lives or ignore it and experience tremendous regret. Time, and courage, made up our minds. Ten months after our first trip to Vietnam, we returned there to pick up our son.
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August 4, 2000: Dear Jantsen, I have decided I'm no longer going to defend our decision to adopt your baby brother. Your dad and I have spent months getting looks of pity from others who seem to be judging us, who see Van as some sort of "replacement child." I am ready. I want to bring your brother home and be his mom. Love you, Mom.
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In August we got the call that our paperwork had been processed and the adoption was approved by the Vietnamese authorities. The decision to say yes to Van, and to myself (and, probably, to the antidepressants I had begun taking), changed me more than I could have imagined. When Randy, his mother, Anne, and I landed in Saigon in August, not only was I sure that I could handle the responsibilities of being Van's mom, but I desperately wanted to.
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When the director of the orphanage handed him over to us on our fifth day there, during a ceremony in a small room decorated with Ho Chi Minh busts and red velvet curtains, Van was dressed in rags—thin jersey shorts with patches sewn on the rear, a tattered shirt, and little plastic gold loafers that barely fit.
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That first night with him in the hotel was one of the best nights I've ever had. I ran him a bath and removed his clothes. Now 16 months old, he was still perfectly plump, as if he'd been pumped with a tire pump. When I set him down in the bubbles, he had no idea what to do. Unlike my other kids, who could spend a whole weekend playing in the bathtub, he just sat there. The only time I'd ever seen him bathed was when a staff member once dumped cold water over his head after he'd been lathered, and he stood there taking the punishment. After he was clean, I rubbed lotion on his calloused knees, elbows, and feet. I clipped his nails, combed his hair, cleaned his ears, and brushed his teeth. "What are you doing, detailing him?" Randy asked me. Van took it all in, barely making a sound. Crista had packed his suitcase, and I opened it to find her brother's new clothes organized into outfits. Shorts were pinned to shirts, socks to hats. I dressed him in a soft one-piece white sleeper (clearly marked by Crista as Night #1) and, sitting next to Randy on the bed, fed Van a bottle. He fell asleep in my arms. It took us more than three weeks to clear all the formalities of an international adoption.
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Compared with other adoptions, we may have gotten off easy—you never know how long the medical checkup, passport, and interview with the U.S. consulate will take. A little more than midway through our waiting time, both Randy and his mom had to return home, so I had Van to myself. I loved it. I'd take him downstairs to the buffet at the New World Hotel so that I could fill us both up on oatmeal. We'd eat at a table in front of a huge window that offered a beautiful view of the park across the street, which was filled with children on their way to school. We got to know the hotel staff, who let Van crawl around the empty halls in the afternoons. Then we'd swim in the hotel pool and take a nap. I fell in love with a cozy little restaurant called Sinh Café on Backpacker's Alley. It had a big open area where Van could run around, chasing the geckos that scampered back and forth.
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Many mornings, I'd walk him there. By the time Van's paperwork was processed, I was dying to get him home. Not only because of how much I knew the family wanted to meet him but also because he'd picked up a parasite somewhere along the way—not unusual for a child from a Vietnamese orphanage. I knew that it could be easily treated with medication at home, but it was uncomfortable for him and tricky for me on a trip that would take us from Saigon to Los Angeles to Tulsa and finally home to Neosho by car. We made it safely, arriving in Tulsa at midnight.
Randy and Crista were there at the airport, waiting for us. I'd never seen either of them as excited. Crista had gotten braces while I was away, and her smile could have lit the airport. Van went to his big sister immediately, and she took him and held him, whispering in his ear. Randy put his arms around me. "I'm so happy you're home! When I saw how close your flight connections were, I never thought you'd make it."I pictured where I was all those days and nights after Jantsen died, feeling hopeless. Like I couldn't go on. I never thought I'd make it either. But I did. We did.
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Van brought so much light back into our house, as if the curtains had finally been pushed aside and the black shades lifted again. Rocking him to sleep every day for his nap was like a balm on my heart. As his body melted into mine, I knew that he needed the closeness, and the healing, as much as I did. After we had him home, I mustered the strength to finally clean out Jantsen's room so Crista could have it and Van could have hers. My mom, Jill, came over to help me pack Jantsen's things. We sorted out the keepsakes, and I put them in the trunk that Randy and I had spent weeks trying to find—the "perfect trunk" in which to store our son's belongings. I opened Jantsen's little nightstand drawer, where he'd kept his most valued possessions, and tried to absorb the fact that it had now been 16 months since I'd seen my son. There were golf balls he'd retrieved from the golf course pond, baseball cards he'd bound with a rubber band, sports medals, a beanie flipper, and some coins. He had needed little to be happy. Oh, and of course, there was his Jeff Foxworthy book, No Shirt, No Shoes … No Problem!, which was probably the only book he'd ever read all the way through of his own will. There was something else I needed to do. By now we had donated $10,000 of Jantsen's money to Carol and Marvin for their adoption work in Vietnam. We wanted them to use it as they saw fit and help get some of the other kids we'd met into loving homes.
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With the remaining money, we started a program to help at-risk children in Vietnam, children who were underage but out on the streets, desperately working to support themselves or their families.
Christmas, 2000: Dear Jantsen, I sometimes think I will stop breathing when I see Crista and Van together laughing. Your dad and I are surprised every time Van does something that reminds us so much of you. Your similar characteristics are a sign that he truly is our special gift. He would love you so much. Love, Mom.
Editors' note: In October 2001, the Cope family returned to Vietnam to adopt their daughter, a two-year-old girl named Tatum Diane. Today, Van and Tatum are both in fourth grade, and Pam and Randy are fully immersed in their Touch a Life Foundation, which is based in Dallas. Its mission is to improve the lives of needy and endangered children. With the $650,000 they've raised so far, they support 260 children in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Ghana
hahaha who knows ?
