Miracle No. 1: Haven Shepherd was not killed.
Her dad — destitute, desperate and unable to support a child — brought a pair of bombs to their small hut in Vietnam. He strapped one to himself and the other to Haven’s mom and placed Haven, then 14 months old, in between.
The parents died instantly.
Photo: AP / Roger Nomer / The Joplin Globe
Haven was catapulted out the door. Her legs were mangled beyond repair, but she survived.
Her adopted parents, Rob and Shelly Shepherd, have photographs of Haven sitting on her maternal grandmother’s lap a few days after the explosions.
The baby’s legs are meticulously wrapped at the ends of the stumps that remained after doctors removed everything below both knees.
Months later, when the Shepherds brought Haven to a hospital in Kansas City, the surgeons were amazed. Often, children whose legs are amputated at a very young age encounter problems that require revisions through the years — surgeries that can be every bit as daunting and debilitating as the original amputations.
Not for Haven.
“They said the amputation was, like, perfect,” Shelly Shepherd said.
It is one of the many reasons Haven, now 15, has developed into an elite swimmer and has her sights set on the Paralympics in 2020.
Miracle No. 2: Forgiveness.
Maybe it is adolescent naivete, or perhaps wisdom beyond her years, but Haven harbors no resentment toward the birth parents who tried to blow her up.
She was too young to remember any of it.
“This is the dilemma about me,” Haven said. “I don’t feel anything toward them because, in the end, they gave me the best life I could imagine.”
That life begins in a desolate, thatched-roof hut in a remote village in Quang Nam Province in Vietnam.
Her birth family was, by accounts from local newspapers at the time, the poorest in the village.
According to the story told to Rob and Shelly when they arrived to bring Haven to the US, her parents were not married to each other.
Divorce in Vietnam was taboo, and because Haven’s birth parents were each married to other people and had very little to live on, they felt stuck.
The Shepherds made the journey to accompany Pam and Randy Cope, who ran a foundation to help care for street kids in Vietnam.
The story of the baby girl who survived her parents’ suicide made big news in Vietnam, and when the Copes heard about it, they used their connections to open a path to place Haven with a family in the US.
However, almost as soon as the Shepherds met the baby, they felt something was changing.
One night in Saigon, as they waited at the hospital for Haven to get the shots and medical papers needed for the trip, Haven wore Shelly’s sunglasses and bounced on her knee.
Shelly swung her up high and Haven let out a huge belly laugh.
“I felt something inside of me,” Shelly said. “It was like: ‘Oh ... she’s my child.’”
She had fallen in love with this young girl — nurtured her during the precious moments after her grandparents gave her away, been wooed by the infectious smile and the way she had charmed Rob.
Already the mother of six, Shelly had become obsessed with the idea of adopting and bringing a seventh child into the family.
She did not head to Vietnam to adopt, but she was devastated to have to give the baby away.
Miracle No. 3: A second chance.
Although the placement family had the best of intentions, it was not a perfect fit. Shelly returned back to her busy life and gave up the idea of adoption. She had found her baby, but was forced to hand her off. No other child could replace that.
Pam Cope made occasional visits to ensure everything was going well at the adopting home. When Shelly asked her friend how things were going, she noticed Cope’s hesitation.
After several more weeks, the call came. It was Shelly’s birthday.
“She said: ‘I think we need to talk,’” Shelly said.
The adopting family agreed to hand the baby over to the Shepherds, who live in Carthage, Missouri — population 14,000. They named her Haven.
These days, Haven swims about 3,500m to 5,550m a day in preparation for a possible trip to Tokyo for the Paralympics in 2020.
It is a pressure-packed journey that, at times, can feel overwhelming.
There are so many people following her story, so many people Haven does not want to disappoint.
Yet, when the pressure seems too intense, Haven is brought back to the humbling reality of how fortunate she is — how swimming is only one part of the grand scheme.
“I don’t think I could’ve lived anywhere else or been raised any differently than how I was,” she said. “I’m a small-town girl from Missouri. When it comes to getting adopted, I got the long end of the stick.”
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
After fleeing Sudan when civil war erupted, Al-Hilal captain Mohamed Abdelrahman and his teammates have defied the odds to reach the CAF Champions League quarter-finals. They are today to face title-holders Al-Ahly of Egypt in Cairo, with the return match in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Tuesday next week. Al-Hilal and biggest domestic rivals Al-Merrikh relocated to Mauritania after a power struggle broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force. The civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than 12 million people, according to the UN. The Democratic Republic of the Congo-born Al-Hilal
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
RSS