This morning, I got an email from Ti Ti. Ti Ti and her sisters are my granddaughters and also my immortal beloveds. I am protective of my granddaughters. However, what irks me is that halfway around the world limits my protective range. To make matters worse, the civil war in Myanmar is worsening.

I could only tell Ti Ti that I was still trying to get someone at the State Department to read my message and video. A couple of years ago, Ti Ti went to the US Embassy in Yangon to get a student visa to come to America and get her education. She wants a college education in America in order to make her country a better place.

A female interviewed Ti Ti, but another embassy employee was present. He was baldheaded and was in the room. Halfway through the interview, he motioned to the female interviewer to turn off the taping of the interview. Then, they talked privately for several minutes with her. Ti Ti only saw him shaking his head, indicating he didn’t want the interviewer to approve her student visa request. The interviewer did reject her but told her to come back again. She did.

This time, the baldheaded guy did the interview alone and rejected her again without a reason. His parting comment was to come back again. She did, and he rejected her again.

I have tried to get influential Americans to at least listen to my concern about how the embassy treated Ti Ti. I have written to a former American ambassador, now a professor, and two well-known lawyers. I made a video and supplied additional material. I called their offices and left messages about sending them links to their videos. In one case, I could speak to the professor’s administrative assistant. She said I had a valid concern and would flag my email to her boss. However, she warned me he was extremely busy and might not have time to assist me.

I wrote emails and regular letters to investigative journalists at The New Times and the Washington Post. Their gatekeepers didn’t think much of my request. I also sent a half dozen emails to ProPublica. I did get a reply that said the person doesn’t accept attachments in email. I resent my email with a brief description of my request and heard nothing in return.

In a recent essay, I mentioned getting nowhere when I ask for help. In that article, I mentioned that I have written to other famous people on various occasions and got responses. This is the list that I provided in the essay of people who responded to me: Carl Sagan, Sen. Paul Simon, Corazon Aquino, Charles Colson, Leo Buscaglia, Desmond Tutu, John Cleese, Min Ko Naing, Dr. John Woods, Peter Jennings, Studs Terkel, Dr. Thubten Norbu, John Astin, and Ron Magers.

So, after reading Ti Ti’s letter and failing to help my granddaughter, I went to the kitchen to make lunch, sat in front of the TV, and watched the BBC America movie channel. And what was playing? Field of Dreams. This is the movie poster that I have in my home.

This is a photo of my three children when we visited 1989 the Field of Dreams near Dyersville, Iowa.

Can you tell I love that film?

Usually, I watch the news during dinner, but I watch parts of old films while having lunch and then go back to writing. Not this day. I sat there watching Field of Dreams and cried. Amid my tears, my mind raced around as I tried to decide which of the three characters I was. Ray Kinsella came to mind the first. Kinsella raises corn on his Iowa farm. The movie begins with him in his field, hearing a voice. After feeling bewildered, he finally hears the voice saying, “If you build it, he will come.” Looking at his cornfield, he sees “Shoeless” Joe Jackson standing in a baseball diamond. Kinsella gets the message. His vision will become a reality if he builds a baseball field.

The parallel to my life is obvious. I told Ti Ti that I would have her come to my home in Crown Point and go to the college where I taught. Ti Ti was a nine-year-old I met a decade ago while playing Scrabble. It contains hundreds of articles that I have written about Ti Ti. All that she needed to do was to get a student visa. She would have been halfway through college today if she had gotten on her first try. However, she was turned down three times in the past couple of years. I wished that people had reached out to help and not stonewalled my efforts. This is Ti Ti’s section on my website, which is called College Days.

Kinsella failed initially, also. He began second-guessing about this dream of a baseball field in his front yard. Then, he meets Terence Mann, an author. Mann was a liberal writer, whom Trump wouldn’t have liked because Mann wasn’t white, and he was like all the non-Trumpers. According to Trump, they are all “communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin.”

Kinsella and Mann attend a game at Fenway Park. They both hear a voice and see Archibald “Moonlight” Graham’s stats on the scoreboard.

Archibald “Moonlight” Graham’s stats

Graham only played one inning but never batted in his extremely brief career in baseball. Kinsella and Mann went to Chisholm, Minnesota, where Graham became a doctor.

The two of them discovered Dr. Graham had died years before. Everything that Kinsella and Mann tried had failed. While the two dejected dreamers drove to Kinsella’s cornfield, they picked up a hitchhiker.

The hitchhiker was a young guy who wanted to become a baseball player. As it turns out, it was the young Archie Graham. This is near the end of the film.

If a dream is worth dreaming, it will take determination. And Ti Ti is worth it. Let me know if you have any people who might help, especially if they have contacts with the State Department or know someone who does. I need your help. Remember this scene.

“This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.”

This is a trailer for Field of Dreams.