The Letter was postmarked simply “North Texas, USA”.  The Letter was addressed to “Mr. & Mrs. Richard Allen”, handed to me by my mother, Joyce Allen, with a look that over the years I knew meant “make this go away”.

I pulled the one-page letter from the envelope and read:

Dear Mr. And Mrs. Allen,
I hope you read this letter with the same joy as I feel writing it and I so hope you can help me find my father.  I was born in Vietnam in 1972,…

The reading of The Letter was to be the start of a journey that would indeed bring joy, but because our life fate insists on balance, the journey would also bring sorrow, loss, understanding and misunderstanding, and the searing pain of intensive introspection.

Lena Huynh is my daughter.  That was settled the moment we embraced at the Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport that July afternoon in 2013.  Friends had warned that we should do DNA testing immediately to be sure about all of this, but that idea evaporated in the moment Lena and I met.  There was no mistake, we both just knew.

Lena and Rich meet for the first time at Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport, July 2013