I first met Nhi in 2005 while visiting Mai’s family in Binh Duong, Viet Nam.  Nhi is a daughter of one of Mai’s cousins.  When we first met Nhi she was a shy little girl of 3 or so.  She had a lazy eye and my brother had a similar problem when he was a child.  He and his wife were with us when we met Nhi and they discussed with us about looking into getting her eye corrected.

In 2008, Mai and I again visited Viet Nam to attend a wedding.  We stayed at Nhi’s Grandfathers house in the country.  Nhi was still a bit shy but she was very playful.  She and her cousin would run from my camera.  Nhi also spent many times sitting next to me chatting up a storm then had a good laugh.   She good easily brighten anyone’s day with her smile.

The photo above was taken in 2008 at an amusement park in Viet Nam.  Nhi wanted her photo taken in that spot and ran to it.  A photographer for the park pushed her out of the way so he could take a photo of someone as I was walking over to her.  After the guy took a photo, I walked in front of him and walked backwards to push him away and motioned for Nhi to stand in a spot to take her photo.

Nhi visited a Doctor while we were there and after we had left she had surgery to correct her eye.

When we were left Viet Nam in 2008, she told her family that she knew English.  They questioned her on what she knew.  Nhi replied, In English they say David, in Viet we say Davit.

Below is a video of her taken the night before we left Vietnam.  She is playing cards with another cousin in HCMC.
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After visiting once again in 2010, we learned that Nhi had an incurable brain tumor.  With countless surgeries and stays in hospitals she passed away October 21, 2010.  She stayed in hospital wards with 30 – 45 other children with only 15 beds available.  After a few days in ICU she was taken to a balcony for recovery.  Later she was transfered from the well known hospital Cho Ray (HCMC) to a country hospital 512 in Binh Duong because the doctors thought there was little hope.  However they told the family that the country hospital could provide her with everything they could but that was not the case.

Even towards the end, Nhi brought smiles to the family.  She wasn’t able to talk for the longest time.  She was always asked what she wanted to eat, though she never said a word, on October 12th she said, “noodles”.

Looking at her photos, she still brings smiles and tears to our eyes.  We know that she is in a better place without any pain and making lots of new friends with just a smile in Heaven.  As I think of all the people that I want to see when I enter Heaven, I hope Nhi is one of the firsts.

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More photos of Nhi can be found on my website at DaJaTu Photo and I created a blog for her that is still up for a few months: Nhi-Nguyen.com