Empowered by Hope

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Contents

Acknowledgements........................................................................xiDedication..............................................................................xiiiAuthor's Note...........................................................................xivIntroduction............................................................................1Chapter One: Lessons Learned............................................................3Chapter Two: Hold On ...................................................................10Chapter Three: ... And Never Give Up....................................................13Chapter Four: Stay in the Present.......................................................17Chapter Five: Be Disciplined and Fight the Good Fight...................................22Chapter Six: Do Your Best, Be Honest ...................................................26Chapter Seven: ... and Keep Your Promises...............................................29Chapter Eight: Let Your Vision Guide You, But Your Passion Lead You.....................32A Ha Moment: Essays.....................................................................37Letters from the Heart..................................................................59Words Of Wisdom From Sam Antion.........................................................67

Chapter One

Of all the things my father taught me, there were two things above all he wanted me to remember. As I was leaving Vietnam, he kept saying: "Do your best, be honest, and keep your promises" and "No matter what, you must live your life until you take your last breath." These two pieces of wisdom have carried me my whole life.

My father knew what I would need to survive, and that he had to give me the words that would act as a life preserver in a stormy sea. These became words for survival.

Mr. Nguyen Van Tho, my father, is a wonderfully wise man. He lived his life and let me watch, teaching me by example. When he did say something, he would back it up with his actions. For example, he always told me to be truthful and I witnessed him being truthful with others. He didn't just preach ideas to me, he lived them. He truly "walked the walk."

It was a powerful way to teach his precious daughter, his only child. Being impressionable as any young child, his words and actions became deeply embedded in my being.

Because my mother had died when I was eight years old, he felt that he had to make up for her absence and give me everything that both a mom and a dad would.

We had an intellectual tradition in my home while I was growing up. I remember spending time with my father in our library, which was a large room with floor to ceiling bookcases, filled with books on philosophy and literature. I was expected to do well in school and after graduating high school, I entered law school.

My dad was also fond of inspirational quotes that illustrated his principles and our home was dotted with fabric banners, framed quotes, and plaques bearing these sayings. To this day I have a love of quotations and inspirational sayings.

I had a privileged life growing up in Vietnam. My father was a wealthy rice merchant and we lived in a big house on a big plot of land which was beautifully landscaped. I wore beautifully tailored clothes made of silk and always had plenty of delectable food to eat.

I even had my own little companion, a girl my age named Mai, who waited on me at my beck and call. She called me "Little Miss" and her job was to play with me and pick up after me. Mai lived in our house from the time we were both very young. My father had made a financial arrangement with her parents, which I started to understand when I was about 12 years old. She even came to live in my apartment in the city of Soc Trang where I stayed during my last year of high school.

Then, on April 30, 1975, Saigon fell, the Americans left South Vietnam, the civil war was over, and the Communists took over the part of Vietnam where I was living. The atmosphere was paranoid because anyone could be arrested and tortured at any time. Fear and terror were the order of the day.

The fact that my father and I were educated and well off put us in further danger since education and personal wealth were seen as examples of capitalism. My father's property was confiscated, and that's when he knew we were going to be in real trouble.

In order to ensure my safety and survival he knew I must escape the Communist regime. I had to leave Vietnam, the only home I knew. I was twenty years old, and my father did not want me, his only child, to escape Vietnam alone.

Despite worrying for my safety if I traveled alone, his unconditional love brought him to the heartbreaking decision that he could not come with me. He thought that if we went together and were caught, he wouldn't be able to save either me or himself. So he stayed behind to ensure that if anything happened to me he could take the necessary measures to free me.

Still, he did not want me taking an uncertain journey into an unknown world by myself. He could have sent a servant with me but he believed a family member would be more loyal than a hired companion. He thought a husband would take care of me in his place and ensure my safety.

My father talked furtively with people he did business with, including my future father-in-law. He couldn't let anyone know what he was doing. If word got to the authorities, they would suspect we were trying to escape and we would be arrested.

One day my father came home and told me he had arranged for me to get married. That is how, seventeen days later, on October 27, 1975, I came to marry a stranger, someone I had met only once for half an hour seventeen days before.

There was no monetary dowry, one which would have been typical for a wedding in Vietnam. Instead my husband gave an emotional dowry, the promise to my father, and me, that he would care for, love, and protect me, my father's only child. My father's unconditional love gave him the strength to let me go, even though his world revolved around me.

My relationship with my husband was that of an acquaintance. We had to get to know each other over time. There had been no courtship or falling in love: This marriage of convenience meant I had to learn to get along with someone I had no choice but to be with.

After my family and I had escaped Viet Nam and survived in a refugee camp we came to the United States. Our first home on American soil was in La Salle, Illinois. Thanks to the largesse of ten women in a Bible study group, we arrived there in the winter of 1979. These ten wonderful sponsors guided and assisted us in our new life with great kindness, but it was extremely difficult for my family and me nonetheless. We did not speak any English, and the huge sense of cultural bewilderment was exacerbated by the language barrier.

In a few short years I had gone from a life of opulent comfort to living a dismal life of uncertainty. Life had to take on a new meaning for me.

It was during this time that I started to fully appreciate my father's words of wisdom and, eventually, integrate them into every fiber of my being and make them my own.

In order to survive and thrive, I had to understand what his ideas meant for me and how to implement them in my everyday life. Doing so has given me purpose, a road map for my life, and a never-ending determination to live my life to the...