More than half a century waiting for her son by the 104-year-old martyr's mother in Nghe An
At her rare age, Mrs. Lai has forgotten many things, but she has never forgotten her son who is lying somewhere on the battlefield. She said that for the past 52 years, she has lost sleep every night because she misses her son, waiting for the day he returns. Her greatest torment has finally been fulfilled by her grandson after more than half a century of waiting.
"God let me live long to wait for you to come home"
In recent days, neighbors and local authorities have frequently visited and congratulated Mrs. Pham Thi Lai (104 years old), after hearing the news that her family had found the martyr's grave after 52 years of waiting. That is the grave of martyr Nguyen Cong Hoa (born 1951), Mrs. Lai's first son.
For nearly 40 years, after her second son also passed away, Mr. Lai has relied on his daughter-in-law in a small house in Van Thuong hamlet. The hamlet is located along the Lam River, formerly belonging to Thanh Van commune. A few years ago, Thanh Van commune merged with Thanh Hung and Thanh Tuong communes to form Dai Dong commune (Thanh Chuong).
Four years ago, after her 100th birthday, Mrs. Lai fell and is now unable to walk on her own, relying on a wheelchair. At her rare age, she has forgotten many things, but she still remembers every little story about her son who lies somewhere on the battlefield. "I miss him so much. Until now, I can't sleep every night because I miss him," Mrs. Lai said. Every time a guest comes to visit, she often tells a clear story about the times she sent her two sons off to war.
“I am not lucky. I have so many sons, but they all left me,” said Mr. Lai, adding that he and his wife had 7 children, 3 girls and 4 boys. However, 2 of his sons died at a young age. He named the remaining 2 Nguyen Cong Hoa and Nguyen Cong Binh, with the hope that the country would soon have peace.
In 1969, like many other young people, following the call of the Fatherland, his eldest son, Nguyen Cong Hoa, joined the army when he was just 18 years old.
“At that time, Hoa had already fallen in love with a girl who lived nearby. His parents also wanted to bring her to their house to ask for her hand in marriage, but Hoa did not agree. Hoa said that the war was fierce and if something happened on the battlefield, it would be a pain for the girl. After a few months of training, he came back home to visit his family and his girlfriend once, then he disappeared forever.”
Mrs. Pham Thi Lai (104 years old), Dai Dong commune (Thanh Chuong district)
The story was sometimes interrupted by the old man’s inability to hold back his tears because of his love for his son. “In the village, several people who went with you have all returned, but why haven’t you come back yet?”, old man Lai hugged his son’s portrait and burst into tears.
Although the eldest son went to war and his life was unknown, in 1971, the couple did not object when their other son also volunteered to join the army. When he joined the army, Nguyen Cong Binh was only 17 years old. “We were also worried about losing our son. But when the country needed him so much, how could we bear to stop him?”, said Mr. Lai.
In June 1973, Mr. Lai and his wife were stunned when they received their son's death notice. Hoa died while serving as a platoon leader in the 968th Division, on an international mission in Laos. To this day, Mr. Lai still tells the story of the termite-eaten shirt every time he mentions his son. "At home, there was a shirt that Hoa loved to wear the most. I carefully wrapped it up and put it in the attic. But one day, when I opened it to check, the shirt had been eaten by termites. A few days later, I received the death notice that Hoa had died," Mr. Lai said.
For more than half a century, every death anniversary and July 27, Mrs. Lai holds a bundle of incense, stands before the altar and prays to find her son’s grave and bring it back to her hometown. “Maybe God has allowed me to live this long to wait for the day I can see my son again, wait for him to come back…”, Mrs. Lai said in tears.
Journey to the motherland
As for the remaining son, after the liberation of the South, he continued to stay in the army. In 1977, Mr. Lai and his wife asked for a wife for their son while Mr. Binh was still in the unit.
“My husband came home for four days of leave to get married and then went back to the battlefield. After that, he only got a few days of leave each year. We rarely saw each other, so it was many years after our wedding that we had children.”
Mrs. Pham Thi Vinh (68 years old), daughter-in-law of Mr. Lai
Although he did not die on the battlefield like his brother, many years of fighting in the jungle also made Mrs. Vinh's husband sick. In 1985, after 15 years in the army, due to poor health, Mr. Binh was discharged with a sick soldier certificate showing a 71% injury rate. However, after only a short time of being with his family, Mrs. Vinh's husband also passed away at the age of 32, due to the illness he had contracted while on the battlefield.
“My father-in-law passed away a few years ago, and my husband also passed away. Only my old mother and young children depended on each other to survive,” said Mrs. Vinh. When her husband passed away, Mrs. Vinh had just given birth to a son a few months ago. He was also the couple’s only son. Her husband died early, and her mother-in-law was also old, so the task of finding the martyrs’ graves fell on Mrs. Vinh’s shoulders. Occasionally, she left her young child behind to ride her bicycle alone, nearly 100 km to the Vietnam-Laos International Martyrs’ Cemetery to find her husband’s brother’s grave. With no results, she continued to ride her bicycle along the Ho Chi Minh trail to Nam Cemetery in Ha Tinh. Every time she received information about the repatriation of martyrs’ remains to these cemeteries, she set out to search. But all those efforts only brought disappointment. Later, when her son grew up, she had to entrust this task to him.
I only went directly to these two cemeteries and went to each tombstone to look for them, not to cemeteries in other provinces. Because many people said that Mr. Hoa sacrificed near Cau Treo Border Gate and was gathered there not long after. But these two cemeteries are the closest to bring him back, and they are reserved for martyrs who sacrificed in Laos. That is why I did not go directly to the martyr cemeteries in Quang Tri to look for him, partly because I did not have the conditions to go far. But I wrote letters to the cemetery management boards, I wrote a lot, but I still could not find him.
Mrs. Pham Thi Vinh (68 years old), daughter-in-law of Mr. Lai
Ms. Vinh's son, Mr. Nguyen Cong Quynh (40 years old), said that the image of his grandmother sitting absent-mindedly in front of the house, waiting for his uncle to return, and his mother rushing to all the cemeteries to search for him, has been imprinted in his mind since he was a child. That was the motivation for him to be determined to find his uncle's grave. Like his mother, Mr. Quynh went to Nam Cemetery and the Vietnam - Laos International Martyrs Cemetery many times to search, with the hope that his uncle's remains had just been gathered or that his mother had missed them. However, among tens of thousands of graves, there was no tombstone with the name Nguyen Cong Hoa. In addition, Mr. Quynh also connected with associations and groups specializing in finding martyrs' graves on social networks.
“Two years ago, my neighbor informed me that there was an advertisement looking for relatives for the martyr’s grave at Road 9 Cemetery, Quang Tri Province. The tombstone only had the name Nguyen Cong Hoa and the unit was Division 968. I immediately put aside all work and went to this cemetery,” said Quynh, adding that when he stood in front of the grave, although he lacked information, he still had a feeling that his uncle was lying there. When he went to Division 968 to check, he learned that the unit only had two martyrs named Nguyen Cong Hoa, a native of Yen Thanh District whose relatives had been identified. Quynh then applied for a DNA test to determine the identity of the martyr. In early March, the family received the test results showing that the remains in this grave were his uncle’s.
“The day I received the results, the whole family hugged and cried. Finally, I was able to lift the burden off my shoulders and help my grandmother fulfill her long-awaited wish of more than half a century.”
Mr. Nguyen Cong Quynh (40 years old), nephew of martyr Nguyen Cong Hoa
After finding her son’s grave, Mrs. Lai said that her greatest wish was to visit her son’s grave soon and bring his remains back to her hometown, but because Mr. Quynh was busy working in Vung Tau, she could not arrange it. “The day my son passed away, he was very miserable, hungry, with nothing to eat. Now, thanks to the Party and the Government, we are happy, so where is my son left?” Mrs. Lai said in tears.
Mr. Tuong Dang Phu - Head of the Department of Internal Affairs of Thanh Chuong district said that Mrs. Lai is the second oldest mother of a martyr in the district. After receiving information that the family had found the grave of martyr Nguyen Cong Hoa, the local government also visited and shared with her. According to statistics of the Department of Internal Affairs, the whole Thanh Chuong district has 4,539 martyrs, of which 2,647 martyrs still do not know where their graves are. Currently, in the district, there are only 35 mothers of martyrs still alive, of which 12 mothers are over 100 years old. The oldest mother of a martyr is 105 years old this year.
