A Lost Brother's Lost Words

At his funeral at the Woodbridge, Conn., Congregational church, Pete was remembered -- in the town where he had spent his youth and that had been his second home during college -- for his vision, "freedom from vanity and self-importance" and "the example of his love, courage and work." Because I have a copy of the service, I know what was said, but I remember nothing about it except arriving at the church under weeping skies and seeing a lot of people I didn't recognize. Afterward, at the cemetery, we placed wildflowers from the farm on his coffin.

WITHIN WEEKS OF THE SERVICES IN CONNECTICUT, Mother took possession of everything related to Pete, including his letters, personal effects and even our right to mourn, as if her grief were more important and more profound than ours. She'd always tended toward a certain emotional intensity and was, as Dad would say, given to hyperbole. It wasn't enough for her to describe her father as an honest businessman; he was "the only man in New Haven who could get a bank loan during the Depression." She didn't love her country, she "passionately adored" it. "Always," "never," "ever" and "only" were among her prime vocabulary words. More reserved by nature, I had regarded her somewhat warily for as long as I could remember. With my brother's death, the distance between us only increased.

She lost her temper more easily than before, and my father, Holly and I kept out of her way to avoid setting her off. We tiptoed, figuratively and literally, around the house. She couldn't sleep at night, and her nerves were so badly frayed that my father muted the ring of the telephone by inserting a piece of foam where the hammer struck the bell.

One time, she misplaced her pen and accused my father and me of taking it in an attempt to make her think she was crazy. I remember looking at my father helplessly. In truth, she was a little crazy. She was in tears many times during my remaining 2 1/2 years of high school. Her mind was often elsewhere. Once, it was my turn to provide a ride home after rehearsal for the school musical. My friends and I waited a long time for Mom before I called to see if she was on her way. She said she was coming. More time passed, and my friends grew impatient. When I called again, she said she had gotten up from a nap with my first call, but she'd forgotten what she was doing and, instead of getting dressed, had gone back to bed.

My father's grief was far less obvious. The two of us were in the car one evening when he was pulled over for speeding. As he handed his driver's license to the policeman, he said simply: "I'm sorry, officer. I didn't have my mind on my driving. I've just lost my son in Vietnam." The policeman was kind and sent us on our way.

I didn't probe my own sadness for several years. And though I might have benefited from more intimacy with my mother, what I wanted was more distance. College in Massachusetts provided a way out of the tensions at home, but the strain between my mother and me only increased when I took part in antiwar demonstrations. I blamed our military involvement for my brother's death more than I did the people who had actually killed him. Only once did I tell my parents I felt that our leaders were wrong. When I did, my mother rebuked me with the words, "You are betraying your brother's memory!"

I'll never know whether she flat-out lied in saying Pete's letters had been destroyed. Maybe she'd convinced herself that they had been. Or maybe she simply couldn't bear to open the trunk. I was still years away from being mature enough and forgiving enough to talk with her about Pete. By that time, it was too late. My father had died in 1997. Dementia had robbed my mother of most of her memories. Yet it had also softened the parts of her personality that I'd found unlikable. She couldn't tell me about Pete, but she could admire the beauty of the cardinals and the trees outside her nursing home, often exclaiming how tall the loblolly pines were, as if seeing them anew each time.

I'D BEEN TO VIETNAM ONCE, BEFORE FINDING PETE'S LETTERS. In 1991, I'd traveled there with a group led by Don Luce. I went expecting to see Pete's windmills and a library built in his memory. But Americans were rare in rural Vietnam before our countries renewed diplomatic ties, and when a few of us stopped in a hamlet to inquire about an IVSer's former cook, the authorities didn't like it. We were escorted out of the province and prohibited from seeing where Pete had lived or worked.

Now that I'd read Pete's letters, I was eager to return. On a hot morning this past September, I again headed south on Highway 1 in Ninh Thuan province. In this most arid region of Vietnam, the landscape is a broad plain with a backdrop of low, craggy mountains. There are occasional modest vineyards.

The country had changed dramatically since my last visit. The United States had an embassy in Hanoi, Vietnam was transitioning to a market economy, and tourists traveled far more freely. But to my disappointment, I could find no evidence of Pete's life in Phan Rang, neither his windmills nor the library. I asked our interpreter to stop in a Cham village known for its weavers. Pete had written about a woman whose blankets he'd helped sell, and I wondered if this might be her home. She'd offered Pete her marriageable daughter and urged him to have his horoscope and palm read -- "the equivalent of our blood test," he'd joked. "Think I'll take a vacation soon."

As we entered the village, our interpreter arbitrarily selected a house where, inside, we could see brightly colored weavings hanging on the wall. Two young women who were sisters began unfolding beautiful, intricately designed spreads. After I purchased several weavings, a third sister arrived. I told her that my brother had come here 40 years ago and helped a woman sell her blankets. She replied that her parents had a good American friend "before the soldiers came." She said her mother had told her he spoke their language. I knew Pete spoke Cham, and my antennae went up.

The young woman said her mother described the American as tall, with a "high" nose. Her father would call out, "Here come blue eyes!" when they saw him approaching on his motorcycle. It was Pete. He'd been so proud of the Honda he bought in 1964.

The young woman said that one day he told her grandmother to pack as many weavings as she could into her largest basket. They rode to the Po Klong Garai towers, which I'd visited the day before, and she sold everything in her basket. She warned Pete that it was dangerous for him to come to the village. "Don't worry about me," he'd told her, just as he'd written to me.

Then he went away and never came back, the young woman said. Hearing the question in her voice, I told her Pete had moved to the Mekong Delta and been killed. She raised her hand to cover her open mouth.

Her mother lived too far away for us to go see her that day, so I went to the car and pulled Pete's picture out of my suitcase. When I handed it to the young woman, she looked at my brother's face and back to mine. "This is for your mother," I said. "Please tell her Pete's sister came back."

Jill Hunting is California-based writer who is working on a book called Finding Pete, Rediscovering the Brother I Lost in Vietnam. Her e-mail is info@jillhunting.com.