This is something I’ve been carrying for a while.
In 1983, I was 18 years old. I had already enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and was just waiting to graduate high school. My dad was an elderly man living a very isolated life. Most people in the neighborhood saw him as the harmless crazy old veteran.
We now know he was likely autistic, but back then nobody understood that.
I was a rebellious teenager in foster care and wasn’t there for him the way I should have been. I still carry guilt about that to this day.
One day he showed me a Polaroid picture of himself with an Indian family. They had taken him in and treated him like one of their own.
At the time, I was annoyed and jealous. But I quickly accepted that they had basically adopted him because he needed friendship and kindness.
Years later, I finally realized just how much they did for him when I couldn’t.
And now, after everything I’ve been through fighting the Army, the Indian and Indian-American community has been incredibly kind and supportive to me as well.
Life has come full circle in the most unexpected way.
Indians have been looking out for my family, first for my dad, and now for me, for 43 years.
I just wanted to say thank you. The gratitude I feel runs very deep.