This is the 400-word essay I entered as part of a contest with the prompt “miracles.”

A man who came home from war in Vietnam so scarred that his wife didn’t know him.

A mother of two whose doctor told her that if she got pregnant again, it would kill her.

A baby girl living in an orphanage in Saigon whose best chance for a good life lay in America.

This five pound baby whose identification bracelet is so small it fits my adult-size thumb like a ring, was strapped onto an airplane with some 300 other orphans and nurses to find her way to the promised land. The plane skidded through a rice paddy after taking off and burst into flames as it crashed, but this little fighter managed to survive.

An American businessman who opened his heart and his personal bank account to fly the survivors to the US despite the fact that they didn’t all have homes to go to.

The pilot who knew that his buddy from Vietnam was a good man with a wife who desperately wanted more children. He put in a call for help to see if they might who might agree to foster one of the children.

This is the story of a tiny baby girl, suffering from malnutrition and desperate for a family, who ended up bringing love to my mother, hope to my father that something good could come of the war, and a precious playmate to my brother and me. She has brought laughter, redemption, and a world of acceptance to our family and today she has her own little girl whose wide-eyed wonder at the world brings each one of us joy.