Amidst the chaos of April 30th 1975, my dad was separated from his immediate family, who were able to evacuate Vietnam on one of the refugee boats and eventually settled in the US. They said my grandmother wept with anguish everyday for the next 6 months from the safety of their new life in America, knowing that my dad's fate was largely uncertain.

My parents were stuck behind in a hellish post-war Vietnam and, for the next 12 years, made multiple failed attempts for a chance of freedom on one of the ill-fated fishing boats. Dad finally decided to give up the treacherous escape plan when they found out about my unexpected arrival in 1987.

When we finally received our immigration Visas in 1997, I could feel the unspoken fear and guilt behind dad's determined eyes: "Should he have tried to escape sooner? Will his Vietnam-born children fall behind their US-born peers and cousins who were given a wide head start? Will his children be able to adapt to a new language and environment...?"

Well, looking back now, I know he knows his fears were unfounded. All of his children have proven that we didn't need the head start to win the race.

But during my moments of reflection....I realized that fate intervened for reasons we could not understand at the time.

Had I not been given those 10 years in Vietnam, I wouldn't be enriched with the cultural and literary knowledge that only a native would be endowed with. I wouldn't have spent hours sitting by the muddy bank of the Đồng Nai river, watching water Hyacinth drifting by the shadow of the evening sun.

I wouldn't have napped under the shady embrace of Ông Ngoại's mango tree. I wouldn't have read comic books under dim flickering fluorescent lights. I would not have learned the poetic techniques of the classic Vietnamese writers like Phạm Duy and Hàn Mặc Tử and incorporate them in my own modern English style. And I definitely would not have absorbed hours and hours of lectures taught over that dark green chalkboard that daddy hand-painted himself.

And without all of those encompassing elements... "Under the Squash Vines" would never exist. And you wouldn't benefit from the wisdoms and stories that, by the hands of fate, only I can tell.

So if I could tell the distraught man on April 30th, 1975 anything, I would say: "It will be okay. It will all make sense in the end."