Simple happiness

(Baonghean) - My teacher, during his career as a Literature teacher, cried many times over the writings of his students. He said that there were essays that he still remembered down to every comma and every stroke. One of those memorable essays, he said, was by a student with deep, sad eyes. The essay was "about the people he loved most", during a session when he came to teach a new class. That student talked about his father in a cheerful voice.

That was a tall, muscular father with strong arms who often held his son in his arms and told him stories every night; a man who played the guitar well, fought well, and made the enemy terrified. Concluding the essay, the student said that he heard his mother say so and he often saw his father in his dreams. When he was born, his father had already sacrificed himself on the battlefield, when only a few hours were left until we reached the day of Victory...

Desire for peace (Unification Festival on Ben Hai River - Quang Tri). Photo: Tran Hoai

The story my teacher told still haunts the hearts of us literature students at that time. Our senior student wrote the essay with extraordinary imagination. But more than that, his imagination was made from so much desire, from so many tears… I keep imagining him sitting in front of the page and letting his heart fly!

Born in peace, I understand how lucky I and my generation are to be born crying in the air of freedom, to enjoy the caress and affection from the hands of both father and mother. I understand that in the dangerous times of the nation's history, every child born cannot enjoy that sweet happiness as a matter of course. They grow up in a home without a father, a home that is always in a state of being trampled by bombs, a home where many nights the mother sits quietly looking at her lonely reflection on the wall, quietly crying, quietly writing letters to the battlefield.

I understand, nearly forty years ago, before that historic day of April 30, the country was like that - a divided family. Too many tears were shed, too much blood was shed, for the day the red flag with yellow star fluttered over the Independence Palace. That victory of our army and people was called Reunion. "After thirty years apart, we have met again, why are tears flowing?" It has been several decades but that song still resonates loudly, as if the joy of that day's reunion still lingers until now. The sound of the heroic victory song seems to linger on every blade of grass and tree branch, on every slanting ray of sunlight shining down on the now peaceful roofs, on every voice and laughter.

The painful past of war and division has receded into the distant past, but for many the pain remains, the loss still bleeds, and the memories still haunt. Victory and tolerance towards the enemy have soothed the wounds, but there remains a painful lesson about war, about the price of peace.

One of my teacher’s students must now be a father of young children. His children proudly tell stories about their father, a father with strong hands who tells them stories every night. That happiness is simple and real, no longer needing to come from imagination. How beautiful that simplicity is!

Nghe An weekend