This morning I received an email from a friend in Viet Nam, Dr. Thuy Pham Thi, pediatrician of Peace Village. She wrote to let me know that in early July a viral infection caused many of the children to become very ill. Several of them were taken to a special children's hospital in Saigon for intensive care. One little girl was not strong enough to fight the illness and she quietly transitioned from this realm.
Her name is Ngoc Houng and she was four.
This news leaves me very sad, but also with a deep desire to share what I remember about Houng. I want to bring her out of Peace Village and into your heart, so you can know her and love her with me. I want her life to matter, because inside her broken little body lived a most amazing spirit!
Houng had an enlarged head due to hydrocephalus, webbed fingers and toes, and a weakened heart caused by ancestral exposure to Agent Orange. Her family was from an area of Viet Nam where large amounts of the toxin had been blanketed on the land and its people sometime between 1961 - 1971. They were very poor and when she was born "different" they knew they would be unable to provide the care she'd need, so they left her at the orphanage as a newborn. Her trip to the hospital in early July was the first and final time she had ever been outside.
When I met Houng in 2012 she was just beginning to take her first steps using a walker, despite Drs. predictions that she was not capable of learning to walk. When I returned in 2013, we enjoyed many strolls down the long corridor together. I would stand just behind her and she'd wrap both of her little webbed hands tightly around my fingers. With complete presence and focus we would set out together on our walking meditation. She set the pace, each step another silent success. Houng wasn't able to speak, yet her spirit communicated volumes about the joy she felt at her accomplishments.
Houng loved being out of her crib and often sat in the doorway of room 2 lining up the nurses shoes which were left just outside the door. Although she wasn't always confident enough to join in, she enjoyed watching the hallway action from the sidelines. It was easy to recognize that she was a child at peace.
I found myself very drawn to her, and she became a teacher for me. I was in awe of her gentle presence, quiet fortitude and fierce grace. She helped me to see that when we continue to move forward from our internal core source of strength, one step or one breath at a time, we can accomplish the unthinkable.
Very appropriately, the shirt she's wearing in the picture below says SUPERHERO! I took it on my last day at Peace Village, just before saying goodbye.
So farewell, my four year old teacher, you will always be my superhero!
