This week, Alabama News Center posted an exclusive, two-part video about Alabama Power employee Anthony Cook and a special gift that he received earlier this year. Today, Cook provides some additional details, and some personal perspective, about a remarkable journey filled with the love of family, and of humanity.

If you missed the videos, check out Part I here and Part II here. 

The Vietnam War (1954-1975) saw the births of thousands of Amerasian babies, children of American soldiers and Vietnamese women. While the exact number is not known, estimates put the number of Amerasian children resettled in the United States at nearly 30,000.

Today, those children are in their 40s, 50s and 60s, and many have tried for decades to locate their biological fathers. Some have succeeded and have built loving relationships. Others have found their biological fathers but discover their long-lost parent has no interest in connecting with them. Not everyone appreciates having their unknown or unwanted past suddenly knock on their door, altering their life.

My family story falls into the loving category.

On June 30, 2023, the following inquiry showed up in my Facebook messages:

“My name is Daniel and I live in Wichita, KS. My mom is an orphan from Vietnam and I’m trying to help her find her biological father. After years of DNA tests and piecing together a family tree, we believe your dad, Albert Cook, is a potential father. Would you or your dad be willing to take a DNA test, just for my mom to have some resolution.”

I thought it was a scam or a phishing prank, so I ignored it.

A few days later, “Daniel” reached out again. I still didn’t respond, but this time I decided to mention it to my dad, who’s 77. I learned that Daniel had also reached out to him, but he didn’t know what the next step should be. I let my dad know that Daniel had set up an appointment for him, and all he had to do was go and submit his DNA. A couple days later, dad drove to the clinic and took the DNA test.

On July 11, I got another message from Daniel. His mom had just received the results of the test.

It said, “Probability of Paternity: 99.99998%.”

All of a sudden, I HAVE A SISTER!!

Her name is Tam. Turns out Daniel is my nephew. And his sister, Naomi, is my niece.

The backstory

In 1965 my dad signed up for the Army. He was 19 when he was deployed to Vietnam, in January 1967. Many soldiers dated Vietnamese girls, and dad was no different.

He came home from war in January 1968. When he left Vietnam, he had no idea the girl he had dated was pregnant.

Tam was born later that year. A year later, my dad married my mom. I was born a year after that.

In April 1975, the South Vietnam capital of Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese Army. The war was over, but the North’s victory put in danger the lives of mixed American-Asian, or Amerasian, babies, who bore the features of the enemy. Also potentially at risk was their Vietnamese mothers.

It was soon after Tam’s mom gave birth that she decided to give up her child, handing over the baby to a Buddhist temple. Monks cared for thousands of fatherless Amerasian infants.

Initially, she checked in on her daughter, and helped by delivering supplies to the temple for the child. But eventually she stopped coming. Over time, the monks at the temple turned over, and because the Vietnamese don’t always issue birth certificates, by the time Tam was 3 or 4 years old, there was no one at the temple who remembered her mother, and there was no official record of the parents.

To this day, Tam doesn’t know her birth mother, her actual birth name or her birthday.

During the Vietnam War, many U.S. soldiers fathered children who remained after the Americans withdrew. (Getty Images / Archive Holdings Inc.)

Like many other Amerasian children, Tam grew up despised in her homeland because of her connection to the American invaders. In 1988, President Reagan signed the American Homecoming Act, which reduced the barriers for Amerasian children and their relatives in Vietnam to immigrate to the United States.

Suddenly, Amerasian children were viewed as a potential ticket for Vietnamese eager to come to the United States.

A Vietnamese couple adopted Tam, and then sold her to another couple that used her to get to the United States. Once they arrived, they essentially abandoned Tam, now a young woman, in Nashville, Tennessee, and moved to Hawaii.

Thankfully, Tam was able to connect with an Amerasian friend living in Kansas; she moved to Wichita, got married and had two children, Daniel and Naomi. They are the ones who helped their mom search for her birth father.

The reunion

Once Tam had confirmation that my dad was indeed her dad, our families were eager to meet. On Aug. 18, Tam, Daniel, Naomi and Naomi’s son, Lincoln, flew to Alabama.

Our reunion was exciting, emotional and absolutely life-changing.

A joyous embrace for newly discovered siblings. (Bob Crisp)

Sister and brother, Tam and Anthony. (Bob Crisp)

As we sat, talked, and learned more of Tam’s story, it was clear her life had involved one rejection after another, after another.

Tam’s greatest worry in meeting us was whether we’d accept her as family.

The irony is, in my mind, I was thinking just the opposite.

From the time I learned that I had an older sister, I was worried – about being worthy of anyone spending their whole life searching for me. I felt like we were the ones who needed to measure up, not her.

It’s never made any sense to me why anyone would hate another person because of how they look.

My family is Black, white and now, Asian. And my son Reggie recently proposed to Lilly, his Hispanic girlfriend. She said yes! (I often joke that all I need now is for my daughter Amaya to meet a Native American guy, and we’d be the complete melting pot.)

Reggie Cook and his fiancée, Lilly. (contributed)

Anthony Cook with his growing family. (contributed)

My faith teaches me that we’re all created in the image of God, and that every man, woman, boy and girl on the planet deserves to be treated with human decency and love.

The ignorance of hate is that you never know who you’re going to need in this life, what connections you might find that make you who you are and complete your story. You never know what life is gonna give you.

This holiday season, the message of Christmas has been intensified in my life. I don’t know who said it first, but Christmas is about the Son of God becoming a man so that men could become sons of God. Jesus came so that God could grow His family.

This summer – 52 years late, but thankfully, not too late – He grew my family by giving me a big sister.

And I couldn’t be more grateful.