Beauty Rising Read Online Free PDF Page A

loved the boy in the picture very much. How strange it felt to think this. I never knew my grandmother, and of course my dad never told me anything about her. It began to dawn on me that Vietnam changed everything about my father.
    “Well, the Vietnam era changed us all,” Reverend Fox continued. “Martin’s life drifted away from church after he returned from Vietnam. But I wouldn’t judge him too harshly. On the contrary, he’s a hero. He served our great nation with distinction and honor. He willingly went when many others tried to shirk the draft by running to Canada or burning their draft cards. God loved Martin J. Kinney, and I’m here today to ask God’s blessing on Jane and Martin Jr. as they grieve the loss of their beloved husband and father.”
    Without warning, Mom stood up abruptly, walked right up in front of the podium, pointed her finger directly at Reverend Fox and yelled, “Fornicator.”
    Complete silence. Nobody dared move an inch. Eternity elapsed within a matter of seconds. Reverend Fox stood frozen. Embarrassment would not begin to describe the depths of insanity that ran through my family. Nobody could make a scene like a Kinney. I knew my mother must be completely crazy. Without saying another word, she marched down the aisle with her heels reverberating loudly off the high ceiling. Soft whispers and murmurs added to the echoed chorus of her shoes. Everyone buzzed with excitement except me and Reverend Fox. I was angry and ashamed. It didn’t make any sense. She was out of her mind. The hum of the small crowd continued to fill the sanctuary as my mom slammed the front door and left. Reverend Fox looked distraught, but quickly gathered his thoughts and tried to reassure the crowd.
    “It’s okay, everyone. Funerals are a particularly stressful time in everyone’s life. We must not let the disruption obscure the reason for us being here – to honor Martin J. Kinney. I would like to ask Mrs. Grassley to come and play a closing hymn for us and then I’ll offer a prayer of benediction.”
    My mother accused a man of God of being a ‘fornicator’ during the middle of her husband’s funeral. I was baffled, yet not surprised. I had no desire to chase after my mother, so I stood and gave lip-service to the hymn that I had never sung before. Of course, I didn’t really know what a hymn was. For the present, it was just a filler of time between when I would leave my dad’s funeral and have to face my mother again. So in any case, I kept hoping Mrs. Grassley would play all six verses.

To Hanoi

    Tan, my taxi driver, wouldn’t let it go.
    “Don’t put wallet in back pocket. You shouldn’t do that.”
    “I know.”
    We left Thai Nguyen as I continued to lament the fact that it was nowhere in the proximity of Tay Nguyen. I felt sick, yet hungry. The only thing I had to eat in this whirlwind of a day when I arrived in Vietnam was a bowl of noodle soup with raw pieces of beef in it, but that was well before the lake or the spilt ashes or the lost wallet or the laughing policemen. This trip had quickly turned into a disaster. I am a Kinney. What else should I have expected?
    “You still have passport, right?”
    “Yes,” I replied to the nosy driver, who as best as I could remember was my only friend in the entire world.
    “Is it in your back pocket?”
    “No!”
    “But you lost all your money? And credit card?”
    “Yes!”
    Tan befriended me in some strange way. I had paid him up front for a full day’s drive, but he must have felt sorry for me. He dragged me everywhere and told me about everything, but nothing sank in. I languished in a foreign land, constantly thinking about my dad’s last wish that I had completely messed up. I looked at Tan and saw a friendly guy with a wiry mustache and several black whiskers on his chin. Standing flat in his black dress shoes, he came up past my shoulder only a little – probably no more than five foot six and weighing a slim one twenty. It