Nghia Dinh Huu

The probability that I am alive is next to impossible, in fact--I should not be alive. I say this because my father was born in the Vietnam war. Surviving meant he had to accept the death of his loved ones and to come to the United States with the trauma of war still haunting him. Nghia Dinh Huu is his name and he was born a bastard son of a black marine and a Montagnard tribes woman. He should have died multiple times before the age of three. His Tribe was slaughtered by the Viet Kong in a genocide. He survived raids from the Viet Kong with tremendous help from American soldiers. He almost boarded the baby lift plane that set ablaze and crashed into the ocean. By all accounts he should not be alive; I should not have been born. As if my father surviving was no accident, I was born giving me life and dreams that he didn’t have at my age.

I dream of myself telling my patient with warmth and contentment that their triple valve replacement was successful. However, when I wake from my fantasy I can hear my dad in his room struggling in his sleep. I have witnessed my father throwing punches into the dark and kicking the blankets off of him trying to defend himself from raiders in his dreams. These small reminders bring back to realizing the sliver of probability that I should not be able to dream, let alone have a pulse as I finish my last homework problem late at night. It is the gift of my life that drives me to fulfilling my dream of solving problems and saving