This is hard.  Harder than I ever thought it would or could be.  Not the writing, the writing is going well.  Better than I have a right to expect and I am so grateful that I have the opportunity, the time and the means to take a short break to tell my daughter Lena’s story.  I’ve spent just over a month in Vietnam this year meeting and growing to love my new Vietnamese family.  This is where I am supposed to be, right now, in this moment doing exactly this.

But telling the story that spans generations and brings into sharp focus events unrelated until now is a sobering responsibility.  Some details of the story can’t, and won’t ever be told.  Some of the story is so heartbreaking that it’s almost impossible to write.  Fragments of Lena’s story are so elegant and the characters so courageous that I’m humbled no matter how many times I hear them, write and re-write them.  Feeling so blessed to have the strength in sobriety to be able to carry this message.