Story of 60 year old grandparents raising abandoned baby

(Baonghean) –The story of a couple in their 60s raising an abandoned 2-month-old baby has moved many people. With their kindness and love for children, the couple overcame many hardships in life to raise Phuong Thao, who is now nearly 5 years old.

She is Nguyen Thi Hoa, and he is Nguyen Dinh Binh (in Cung Ward, Vinh City, Nghe An). Mr. Binh and Mrs. Hoa were soldiers for nearly 10 years in the Central Highlands battlefield. In the same unit, from the same hometown, they fell in love and became husband and wife. After being demobilized and returning to their hometown, they had no salary or job so they had to work for hire. One after another, 3 children were born, there were many difficulties and shortages, but the couple loved and sympathized with each other so they overcame everything.

The children grew up, the grandparents had two grandchildren, and their daughter and her husband lived separately. To earn more income, the grandparents took in children to care for. Among them was Phuong Thao.

Having no family or relatives, her daughter was only 2 months old, so Phuong Thao's mother had to bring her to Mr. and Mrs. Binh Hoa's house to ask for help in looking after her so that she could work as a hairdresser, shampooer, and coffee seller to earn money to raise her child. Seeing that the child was too young, the grandparents intended not to accept her, but could not bear the lonely and difficult situation of Thao and her mother, so they opened their arms to take care of Thao with a monthly salary of 300,000 VND (Phuong Thao was born on August 17, 2006). Before receiving the first month's salary for babysitting, Mr. and Mrs. Hoa Binh had to reluctantly raise the child when the mother was involved in legal trouble.

Mrs. Hoa said: "I don't know if my husband and I will live until the day Thao's mother comes to claim her child, so I wrote down the events related to her so that one day when she grows up, she can read and understand her background. We hope she will understand, live and take a different path from the person who gave birth to her, to become a useful person for society."

I read the diary entries that Mrs. Hoa wrote for Thao and could not hold back my tears because of emotion. If one did not know Thao well, one would think that these were the feelings of a grandmother for her grandchild and her erring daughter.

Therefore, the first lines in the diary recorded Mrs. Hoa's heartbreaking moment when she heard that Thao's biological mother was arrested. At that time, Thao was only 2 and a half months old and was being held in a hospital. Too surprised by that incident, the neighbors told her to take her to the Vinh City police station (where Thao's mother was arrested and detained) to return her to her mother.

However, not being able to bear to leave the sick newborn baby at the police station, the couple took Thao home and have been struggling to raise the "little child" ever since.

Baby Phuong Thao and Mrs. Hoa go to kindergarten

Little Thao had to leave her mother when she was less than 3 months old, without any relatives on her paternal or maternal side, but in return, she was given a family of nannies who loved her like her own grandchild. It is difficult to describe all the difficulties of the grandparents at the age of 60 raising a young grandchild, and little Thao was weak and sick all the time. One time, she was very sick, and treatment did not improve, the whole family was poor, but fearing that something might happen to her, Mrs. Hoa's daughter left her two children at home for her to look after, and took Thao to Hanoi alone. The conclusion of the Swedish Children's Hospital was that Thao had severe anemia.

Instead of receiving wages from the child's mother, the grandparents now have to save their hard-earned money to buy milk, medicine, and stay up all night to take care of the child when he is sick. The grandparents' circumstances are not very prosperous. Currently, Mrs. Hoa takes care of the children and Mr. Binh works as a night guard at the 18-story Tecco building from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. the next morning. Despite the difficulties, knowing that the child really wants to go to school (the grandparents' house is 10 steps away from Doi Cung Kindergarten), the grandparents still decided to send Thao to kindergarten with a tuition fee of 600,000 VND/month.

Now Phuong Thao is 5 years old, goes to kindergarten, is loved by the whole family, gets to blow out candles every birthday, and the most important thing for Thao is that just like June 1st last year, Thao will be taken by her grandfather to the office where he works to receive gifts on International Children's Day.

Dam Phuong