How I Found Love in Saigon

​​It all started with a dance.

I had been in Saigon for a week, interviewing locals and capturing stories. I got invited to a swing dancing event and said yes.

The room was warm and loud and alive. People spun and laughed and swapped partners. Halfway through the night, a woman caught my eye.

She had this vibrancy about her, this free spirit. She looked joyful while she danced. Confident.

Later in the evening, I saw her standing alone at the edge of the dance floor. I walked over, thinking this was my chance to ask her to dance.

But then…I panicked. I slowed down, hesitated, basically chickened out at the last second like a teenager.

Then she turned around, saw me hovering awkwardly, and asked, “Do you want to dance?” “Who - me? Sure, yeah.”

We danced. And almost immediately, something sparked.

Not a dramatic movie moment, just that unmistakable internal click: Oh. You.

We met up the next day and walked through the city at night - past street stalls and markets, through pockets of noise and light, and eventually into a park where things quieted down.

As we talked, the sparks from the night before started to soften into something steadier: a growing recognition of kindred spirits.

Listening for someone’s story

At one point, I noticed her hands. They didn’t match her youthful appearance. Her face looked bright and young, but her hands had lines on them, like they’d carried more than they should have had to carry. That’s when I began to ask about her story.

For anonymity, I’ll call her An.

An was left at the hospital the day she was born, reportedly the seventh daughter in a family that couldn’t care for her.

Soon after, she was adopted into a new family: an adopted mother, grandmother, uncle, and brother. She wouldn’t learn she was adopted until her teenage years.

Her childhood was difficult, but loving. They were poor, constantly scraping by, sometimes relying on the kindness of neighbors, sometimes on small successes selling bread on the street. There was care and responsibility and support, but also strain and stress that never fully left the room.

And then came the losses.

When An was 11, her adopted mother died of cancer. At 16, her brother passed away due to health complications. Not long after, her grandmother died of old age. And most recently, just before we met, at 29, her uncle had passed away too.

I had met An at a tender moment in her life. With no family left, she was stepping into adulthood while still carrying old wounds and trying to make sense of what she had lived through. She needed someone who could listen and understand. She needed someone who could care for and hold her.

In a strange way, I was entering a new chapter too.

Professionally, after years of being a content creator, I was searching for deeper clarity and mission. I was burning out. My creative spirit felt stale, my vision blurred.

Personally, I was mostly content, but still carrying my own quiet bruises - echoes from past relationships and early childhood.

It felt like we each held something the other needed.

Our connection was easy and sweet. We became like sticky rice, rarely apart for long. We crossed the street holding hands, laughing and teasing each other — in that unmistakable early season of falling in love.

There was deeper soul work too. We shared wounds. We held space. We offered each other a kind of healing that only happens when someone doesn’t just listen to your story, but sits inside it with you.

Though our connection was growing, I still struggled to make sense of An’s story.

It felt so tragic and yet there she was: kind, joyful, serene. How did those truths coexist? So I kept asking questions and kept listening.

An told me her adopted grandfather had served for over 20 years in the Vietnamese wars. He was separated from his family for decades: from his wife, daughter, and son. His children were babies when he left to fight.

When he finally returned, he survived the war, but couldn’t bridge the emotional distance that had formed. For years, his family had suffered while he was gone, financially and emotionally, in a country steeped in hardship, resentment, and instability. Tension, trauma, and disconnection ran through the family system long before An entered it.

I started to see her life as part of a larger thread.

She was adopted into a family carrying generational wounds. And yet, in some mysterious way, she was also shielded from parts of that pain. Perhaps because she wasn’t biologically tied to it. Perhaps because she entered the story at a different angle.

Then I thought about the other thread: her biological family. What were they living through to make the decision to leave their child at the hospital?

Is it possible it was more an act of love than abandonment? Could being left behind have altered the trajectory of her life in ways none of us can fully measure?

As I looked at her life more carefully, the losses, yes, but also the timing of unexpected provisions, I found myself holding her story differently.

A scholarship that allowed her to attend high school. Strong exam results that led her into a top university for architecture. Opportune job opportunities after graduation. Small openings that showed up at the right time. 

Not a life spared from suffering, but a life strangely sustained.

And now, with her adopted family gone, an unspeakably painful reality, she also stood strangely unbound from the generational conflict and familial obligation that weigh heavily on many Vietnamese youth.

Her story held a divine juxtaposition: freedom and loss, blessing and suffering, joy and grief. It seemed the same family story that caused her so much pain was also the story that, somehow, gave her life.

I hold these reflections lightly. I did not live her pain. I only glimpsed it. But as I sat with her story, I could see God’s presence— not removing suffering, but quietly guiding within it.

A story marked by loss, yes, but also resilience, beauty, art, and most importantly, the possibility of a full and meaningful life.

And through loving An, through opening my heart to her, something clarified about my own calling.

I’ve long believed that every person has a story. That we are all created in the image of God, the image of Love, and so each of us carries a story of love, in one form or another.

But this experience gave that belief more weight.

Our stories are not isolated. They are connected, shaped by generations before us and carried forward long after we’re gone.

They are co-authored by everyone we meet. They cross, they collide. They braid and unravel and weave again.

Every person has a story. Every story is a tapestry- and the tapestry is the larger story of Life and Creation that God is authoring, to be revealed in due time.

And the goal isn’t to fully understand a story, but to seek it —to trust that even when we see only fragments, something meaningful is unfolding.

Because Life is a story, and when we step inside another person’s story, we feel more connected to them, to ourselves, to God, to Life…

My last image of An is her climbing onto the back of a motorcycle, helmet on, disappearing into traffic. She turned back and waved, holding back her tears. I waved too, knowing it would likely be the last time we’d see each other.

After spending two months in Saigon together, we ended our love story. The connection was real, but our lives weren’t aligned for the long term.

Not everything beautiful is meant to stay. Some things pass through us. They awaken us and prepare us for what is to come.

So maybe the invitation is this:

Enter stories without needing to control the ending. Love without possessing. Listen without fixing. Trust that even brief crossings can shape a life.

So then, how can we discover our story and understand it for ourselves?

How can we begin to live our story? Or live into them more fully?

That’s what I’ll explore next.

Y… is for finding YOUR story.

With curiosity,
Eric

P.S. I’m nearing the end of my A-Z series, and I’m deeply grateful to those of you who’ve been reading along. What would you like me to explore next? What questions feel alive for you right now? Feel free to email me.

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