Her childhood in southern Jefferson County was “wonderful,” Vietnamese adoptee Lyly Koenig Mendez once said. But the area was not exactly a hotbed of ethnic diversity, and there was no one else around who looked like her.
“Because Lyly had been so accepted in the community, I never had thought, never realized, that she felt so different,” said her mother, Karen Koenig, who still lives in rural Festus. “It was when she finally got to Vietnam, in the environment where everybody looked just like her, she said she finally felt like she fit in.”
Lyly Kara Thanh Koenig Mendez died Jan. 20 at age 40, following an eight-year battle with breast cancer.
Lyly was born in South Vietnam and was one of about 3,000 babies brought to the U.S. as part of Operation Babylift in 1975.
Vietnam veteran Ralph Koenig and his wife, who had been wading through a mountain of adoption paperwork for 11 months, met their baby at the airport in St. Louis.
“At 5 months old, she weighed less than 10 pounds,” Karen said. “That first night, she slept through the night, but we were so nervous, we must have gotten up five times.”
Division of Family Services officials told them Lyly was the first Vietnamese child adopted in Jefferson County.
Lyly was given a “birth judgment,” a document issued when the exact date of birth is unknown, and became a citizen shortly before her fourth birthday.
When she was 2, her sister Lindsey came along, followed by a brother, Ross. She grew up in the R-7 area with her siblings and a Vietnamese foster sister, Di Nguyen, who helped Lyly learn about her native country.
Lyly graduated from Crystal City High School and earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Missouri in St. Louis. Later on, she also earned a bachelor’s in fashion design. While still a college student, she began dancing and cheering for the St. Louis Rams football team.
She moved to California in 2000 just for the change.
“She had some job opportunities, some friends who were out there,” her mother said. “She decided to go and see if she liked it. That was Lyly; take a notion to do something and just do it.”
While in California, she spent two years cheering for the San Diego Chargers, adding more people to her ever-enlarging circle of friends.
“She was blessed with awesome friends,” Karen said. “So many of them have commented to us how giving, how sharing, how gracious she was.
“It’s nice to hear that.”
In 2005, World Airlines, which had been involved in Operation Babylift 30 years earlier, sponsored an expenses-paid trip to Vietnam for several adoptees, and Lyly was chosen. She and her mother visited the orphanage where she was born in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) and she was able to meet with other adoptees.
Lyly said then, “I feel like I have gained several brothers and sisters. America is my home, I am an American, but Vietnam will always be in my heart.”
At age 32, Lyly was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer. She underwent treatment and was pronounced in remission.
“She thought she had beaten it,” her mother said.
But three years later the cancer recurred, with tumors wrapping around her ribs at the sternum. She underwent a bilateral mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation and more, and was once more optimistic.
It was around that time she met James “Jimmy” Mendez through a friend.
“They had an immediate connection,” Karen said. “They dated for three or four months and got married Sept. 28, 2011.”
Jimmy was deployed to Kuwait for a year-long tour late that year. Just before he left, the young couple got the bad news that Lyly’s cancer was back yet again.
“This time it had metastasized to stage 4,” Karen said.
But the two remained upbeat, keeping in close touch by phone and computer.
“We’d be visiting her, and they’d both have their computers on with Skype open,” Karen said with a laugh. “They’d just go about their business and chat with each other, 7,000 miles apart.”
Over the next two years, Lyly fought but the cancer gained ground.
“They treated it the best they could, but this time it just got the best of her,” her mother said.
When it was time for her to go on hospice, Lyly’s family settled her in at the Texas home of her sister, Lindsey Blaha.
“The weekend before she passed, some of her friends from California and St. Louis and Baltimore were in, and Lyly was talking and laughing with them,” Karen said. “She was fragile and weak, but she was smiling and cutting up and just enjoying people.”
Lyly’s family will return to Vietnam in March for the 40th anniversary commemoration of Operation Babylift. They will conduct a small memorial service for her as well.
“It was on her bucket list to have her dad walk her down the aisle,” Karen said. “When she married Jimmy, it wasn’t possible, so Ralph’s going to do it (with her ashes) at her memorial.”
Karen said everyone who knew her will remember Lyly for her sheer zest for life, and for her ability to connect with people.
“Over and above any of the other things she did, for her it was always about people,” Karen said. “She loved people, loved her family.
“Lyly brought so much joy to people’s lives. She lived life to the fullest.”
“Life Story,” posted each Saturday on Leader Publications’ website, focuses on one individual’s impact on his or her community.