The Hand I Was Dealt

Part 2 Betty's Last Lecture, Cont. 2. The Cards I Was Dealt & The Hand I Played Life snuck up on me. I was always unprepared: to the girls who called me names in middle school, to the subject that I wanted to study in college, to the question of what I wanted to be when I grew up. I didn't know I was supposed to look for a possible husband in college. After graduation, eligible men thinned out. I finally married at twenty nine. At thirty four I had my first child, Bryan. All my insecurities flooded upon me as I realized that I, now am responsible for another human being, how he would turn out, how he would think about himself, how he would relate to those around him. Not trusting my instincts which seemed not to have served me well in the past, I read book after book on how to raise a child. Day in and day out my nose was between the covers of a book. I read the latest research, rat experiments, nutrition, language acquisition, fine motor skills, gross motor skill, brain development. Five years later, I counted a total of over one hundred books read. My child is going to know what to say when a middle schooler calls him name a name. My child is going to know what he wants to be when he grows up. 3. My Childhood My great grandfather was a very wealthy land owner in North Vietnam. It was said that he owned land so vast that birds had to rest in their flight to cover the entire extent of his land. It was the time when Ho Chi Minh was gathering power. Communist ideology believed in the distribution of wealth amongst the poor. How? By taking. My great grandfather and two of his sons were killed. My grandfather fled to the coast of Vietnam with Communist soldiers in hot pursuit. For three days and three nights my grandfather, his wife and their seven children made their way through the tropical jungle of Vietnam. My uncle told me they were rescued by an American Red Cross ship that took them to South Vietnam where they started a new life.