Lenora's Blog

Two unspoken lovers, destined to be together, but forbidden to have one another. The secret desire they hold hidden from themselves and all others, soon caused them to depart from one another. Though they truly love each other, they cannot be together because of their forbidden love, for she belongs to another. He does his best to maintain himself by departing to another country. Unfortunately for them, their hearts have already connected and the forbidden love travels the distance they have between them. She does her best to maintain her true life of a married woman and mother of two. But the deep desire she has for him begins to change her personality to that of one whom has become lost in that what is forbidden and taboo. She searches for peace to live the life she thought she wanted. She soon realizes she should have never made the commitment to be the wife of a man she never loved. It was a marriage of convenience and commonsense, not of love or a desire for eternal life together. The forbidden love they both discovered on an island during their summer vacation seemed to follow them both. He traveled to avoid her but found an indirect way to have a connection to her through someone else. The connection is a woman of strange ways and unspoken knowledge of the forbidden love. She stumbled upon the love connection he sent her from afar. She thought she was just visiting a friend but she walked into her forbidden love.

Agent Orange 35 Years Later

Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign (VAORRC)

The YouTube video depicts the effects of Agent Orange 35 years after its usage in Vietnam. The second link is to an organization called Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign (VAORRC). VAORRC was established to provide justice for victims of Agent Orange. The victims of Agent Orange include several generations of Vietnamese and American soldiers, including my father. Agent Orange was a chemical that the US military used to spray over Vietnam during the war. The purpose was to eliminate the enemy that was hiding in the thick forest in Vietnam. The chemical was meant for the Vietnamese enemy, but like all wars, innocent victims are more affected than the actual enemy.

I can’t imagine what the parents of the children who are victims of Agent Orange are feeling, but I can tell you my own personal view of the effects of it on my dad. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer September 1993. He was told if he didn’t start chemotherapy immediately, he would die with six years. My dad refused treatment and lived until September 2004. He outlived two of his cousins, who both were diagnosed after my dad, but received chemotherapy. One of his cousins died within six months of receiving treatment. His other cousin died two years later after receiving chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Also, because my dad refused chemotherapy treatment, he only received partial disability payment. He developed Type I diabetes as a result of Agent Orange as well.

By 2002, the cancer had spread throughout my dad’s entire body. In 2003, he decided to try outpatient radiation treatment. The treatments made him feel worse and added additional medical problems for him. March of 2004, my dad said he was tired of fighting his illnesses and was at peace with himself. He had developed a brain tumor which caused partial blindness in his left eye. It made it difficult to identify his five daughters. My brother was easy because he was my dad’s only son. But my sisters and I happen to all look alike and are of similar height. So we had to identify ourselves to him. I remember my dad arguing with me because I had changed my hairstyle, which was one of his ways of identifying me.

During one of the last conversations I had with my dad, he said that he joined the Army to support his family, but now it was killing him. After my dad’s death, we found medical documents about all the medical problems my dad was suffering from as a result of the Vietnam War. Like Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, my dad still remembered the name, age, date, place, and time of the first soldier that died under his command. He would visit the young man’s home every year on the man’s birthday, but would only stand across the street from his home, wishing for the courage to apologize to the young man’s parents.