"Fairy tales about mankind"

(Baonghean) - My son Bim just started first grade this year, is learning to read and write so he spends all day reciting poems he learned at school. Today he read a poem, which had a passage:

"Knowing children's desires

Stories from the past and the future

I don't know where it came from.

But you go back there..."

Suddenly, he stopped reading and looked at me happily: "Now Bim knows why there are grandparents, grandparents are to read fairy tales to Bim, don't you think so?". I was stunned, to be honest, I have never asked myself the question "Why are there grandparents?" or "Why are there old people?". But why?

Surely there was a time in human history when people asked this question. Because I remember there was an ancient story about a king who one day decided to lock all the old people in the capital into the deep forest. He thought that the old people were a burden to the young, they could not do anything, were difficult and dependent on the services of others. A son could not bear to send his father into the forest, so he disobeyed the king's orders and hid his father in a warehouse. Then suddenly there was a terrible epidemic throughout the capital that no one knew how to cure. All the old people, those who had survived the epidemics of that ancient disease, were sent into the forest. At this time, the father came out of his hiding place and instructed everyone on how to cure the disease. That was when the young people realized that: The old people are mirrors reflecting the image of the past, history and ancient knowledge, without the past there would be no present and future.

If I tell my Bim this story, will he understand? I think it is very difficult. Many adults do not even understand this principle. In many families, the coexistence between generations is as tense as the Cold War of the 20th century. In many agencies, there are young people who see their predecessors as a wall preventing them from going further on their career path. This is an unnecessary, unworthy and not allowed confrontation in this society, because it goes against the order of creation. There is a before and then there is an after, there is yesterday then there is today, there is a beginning then there is forever. It is a cycle that ensures the existence of life, as if from the beginning our chromosomes were just small molecules, storing memories of thousands of years ago to form complete individuals of today and tomorrow.

If we don't know how to love and cherish the image of ourselves yesterday, when it's gone, we'll see that something inside us is broken. We'll see that what is sacred and precious doesn't require us to question the reason for its existence. The reason lies in the blood flowing in our veins, the same flow that has continued since the beginning of humankind. As if suddenly remembering something, I asked Bim what the poem he just read was called? "Fairy tale about mankind".

Hai Trieu