The difficult family situation of an old woman raising two orphaned grandchildren

Meeting Mrs. Cuong who was raking mussels on Lam River to improve her meals, when asked about her family, she told us in tears: Her son passed away 6 months ago due to a serious illness, leaving behind 2 young children for her to raise.

The grandmother and grandchildren depend on each other and live on rice grown by farmers in Lam Hong hamlet. “My family has a few acres of rice fields, but now I am old and my grandchildren are still young and cannot work, so we have to let others plow and cultivate the rice. In a year, we get more than a quintal of rice, so we have rice for our grandmother and grandchildren to eat,” said Mrs. Cuong.

She married a man from Nam Dan, but her paternal family was poor so they stayed in her maternal hometown to make a living. Mr. Phan Cong Mui - her husband often went to the forest to cut bamboo, chop firewood, make rafts to bring back to the lowlands to sell, to get money to buy rice to feed his children. When his first child was over 7 years old, he fell ill and passed away.

She lived alone as a widow raising her children. Those extremely difficult years seemed impossible, but she and her children eventually recovered. In 2003, she even ran around and borrowed money to build a two-room house to replace the old, dilapidated house.

She thought that raising her children would make her less miserable, but once again, disaster struck her family. She and her husband had two children. Their daughter got married in the South and has almost disappeared. Her son, Phan Cong Hoang (born in 1990), went to work in Binh Duong, got married, and had two children. However, due to difficult circumstances, she had to bring them back to her hometown to raise.

In 2018, she fell and broke her leg, had to go to the hospital 4 times, and at the same time, her eldest grandchild, Phan Thi Thu Thuy (born 2012), fell into a pot of soup and was severely burned, taking months to recover. That year, both grandmother and grandchild were hospitalized, in a very difficult situation.

Not long after the pins were removed from her leg and she was able to walk normally, Mr. Hoang in the South discovered that he had multiple illnesses at the same time (liver, kidney, stomach, etc.), and he could not earn enough money to pay for treatment. After a long period of treatment without results, when the illness became too severe and he could hardly live, he returned home to be cared for by his mother.

In December 2022, he passed away at the age of 32, leaving behind two young children for his elderly mother, because the mother of the two children continued to work in the South and her job was also unstable. In the cramped two-room house with two altars (one to worship her husband, one to worship her children), Mrs. Cuong suppressed her grief and tried to raise her two children.

Currently, Phan Thi Thu Thuy (11 years old) has finished grade 5, Phan Cong Duong (9 years old) has finished grade 3, Ngoc Son Primary School. The two children lost their father, lacked the love of their mother, and lived with their grandmother since they were young, so they are very familiar with the poverty of their family.

Thuy studies hard and is quite sensitive. Every time her parents are mentioned, she feels sad. Every day, Thuy often helps her grandmother cook rice, pick vegetables, and clean the house. This summer, because the well in the garden dried up, she also helped her grandmother carry clean water from relatives in the neighborhood to fill the tank for later use. Mrs. Cuong said that sometimes she also goes to Lam River to catch mussels to improve the meals for her grandchildren.

Coming to Lam Hong hamlet, Ngoc Son commune, listening to the locals tell the story of Mrs. Cuong's family, everyone felt sorry for her. Mrs. Pham Thi Mui (84 years old), a kind neighbor, shared: "In this hamlet, Mrs. Cuong's family is probably the most difficult situation. Before, her husband passed away, she raised her children alone. Now that her children have passed away, she is raising her grandchildren alone, constantly poor. Living nearby, I have witnessed and understood the hardships that Mrs. Cuong had to go through, not only material deprivation, but also mental loss."

Currently, although not belonging topoor households, but her family's situation is probably the most difficult and unfortunate in the commune. According to Mrs. Cuong, in previous years, her family was also a poor household, but in 2022, her son was seriously ill, she had to go to the South to take care of her grandchildren, leaving her house and garden empty in the countryside, so in that review period, the locality did not put her name on the list of poor households.

Living in poverty, the three grandmothers and grandchildren depended on each other. Last month, Mrs. Cuong fell ill and had to go to the hospital for treatment. She had to take her grandchildren with her because “no one would take care of them at home.”

Recently, seeing her pitiful situation, a philanthropist supported the three grandmothers and grandchildren with a carton of milk and a carton of instant noodles each month. Mrs. Cuong shared: "I am now old and weak, anyone who can help is very grateful, I just hope the children have something to eat, something to wear, and can go to school like their friends in the village."

Please send all support to: Ms. Le Thi Cuong, Lam Hong hamlet, Ngoc Son commune, Thanh Chuong district, Nghe An province. Phone: 0971.243.938. Or Communications Department, Nghe An Newspaper, No. 378, Le Nin Avenue, Vinh City. Phone: 02388. 600. 006