"Gone with the wind..."

(Baonghean) - I kept telling myself that after these few more years of studying abroad, I would be able to celebrate Tet (Lunar New Year) at home again. But then, talking to a friend who married someone far away, I suddenly felt a pang of guilt: If I also married someone far away, when would I ever be able to return to my parents? Would those old Tet celebrations truly never come back? Just thinking about it brought tears to my eyes...

My mother always sings the same old tune: "A daughter in the house is like a ticking time bomb," meaning that within two or three years, I have to get married so she can have grandchildren to dote on. I happily agreed, convinced that life was already predetermined, and as for who I would marry, where I would live, and when... well, I'd just have to decide when the time came! I simply thought that getting married early, having a few grandchildren for my grandparents to dote on, and then my husband and I could spend our free time playing cards at their house—grandparents, parents, and children—would make the whole family happy! And actually, that's the common goal for everyone, isn't it? Adults are like seeds of ripe fruit; they have to find a place to sow them and sprout into seedlings, not rely on the mother tree forever and rot away. But I want to be a seedling under the shade of my parents, not a dandelion seed carried away by the wind to distant lands...

A friend of mine married someone here and now has two children, so she probably won't be going back to Vietnam anymore. Life is truly unpredictable; who, while still in their parents' arms, would imagine being so far away, to the point where they might only see each other again in a lifetime? Whenever I visit, she always asks when I'll be going back to Vietnam, whether I plan to stay permanently or not, and then says, "It's absolutely right that you're going back. A daughter needs to be close to her parents to be truly happy; there's no place like home. Later, when you get married and have children, you'll realize how much you need your parents. I'll definitely make sure my daughter stays close to me; I won't let her go far away, because she'll only suffer and gain nothing." I looked at her, lost in thought, seeing in her eyes a profound sadness, suffering, and despair. Or perhaps it was the aimless wandering of a dandelion seed carried away by the wind, yearning for some distant homeland?

At this point, I'm beginning to picture more clearly the Lunar New Year celebrations awaiting me, as well as those awaiting all the young women about to cross the river (marrying off to the afterlife). There will be no more afternoons accompanying my father to the Tet market to buy peach blossoms and apricot blossoms. There will also be no more New Year's Eve offerings prepared by my mother or the pickled vegetables my grandmother makes. I will have to shoulder the responsibilities, managing everything from cooking to household chores, both at my husband's and my own home. I will silently weep when I see my parents-in-law and remember my own parents. I will feel a pang of longing when I see my husband's siblings and imagine my own siblings. More than anything, I will cry for myself, wondering if anyone in the place that was once my home, the shelter I found refuge under, will still remember me? And will I be able to remember the people and scenes of that beloved place forever if we have to be separated for such a long time? If a girl from the North marries a man from the South, will she ever forget the rosy hue of the peach blossoms?

Even if we forget something, a vague yet persistent longing and affection will remain in our hearts, a memory of a place we once belonged to. And who can say we no longer belong there? As long as our hearts beat, the rhythms of love, the fated connection that binds us to that place by blood, will continue. Because we know that here, as we sob and weep, our parents are also sleeping fitfully in their tear-filled dreams on the other side of the sky. Let this longing and affection be carried away by the wind, exchanged between us...

Hai Trieu(Email from Paris)