When the smile returns

(Baonghean) - Knowing that she won the first prize in the contest "Family memories, lighting up the future" organized by the Vietnam Family Newspaper, I made an appointment to meet her. After much persuasion, she agreed to accept. For her now, happiness is peace in life. She is Nguyen Thi Buoi, author of the work "The Smile Returns"...

Born in 1985, in a large family in Nam Dan, after graduating from the Faculty of Biology (Vinh University), Ms. Nguyen Thi Buoi went to Con Cuong to start a career. The petite, gentle female student was noticed by many people. But she was "captivated" by a male colleague from Do Luong. After nearly a year of dating, the two got married. For her, that was a great happiness. But then, her happiness was "as short as a sigh". After the wedding day, her husband was constantly sick. Headaches, fatigue, high fever, then stomachaches. She took him to many places for examination, but no illness was found. She decided to ask the company for a few days off to take him to the provincial hospital for a general examination. When she received the test results, she felt like she had died for the rest of her life when she learned that he was HIV positive: “Perhaps I will never forget that fateful afternoon, the feeling of shock and terror like it was yesterday, when the doctor announced that my husband was HIV positive. The ground beneath my feet collapsed, tears streamed down, my hands trembled despite the doctors' sympathy and comfort. I staggered and walked aimlessly while my husband ran after me to ask what happened. I gave him the test paper and the question: Why? What did you do to end up like this? At that moment, I sat down on the ground, crying as if I could not stop” (Excerpt from the work “The Smile Returns”, all excerpts in the article are taken from this work).



Ms. Nguyen Thi Buoi (middle) received first prize in the writing contest on "Family memories - Lighting up the future" organized by Vietnam Family Newspaper.

Is there any greater pain than when a mother, in her sixth month of pregnancy, receives the results that she is HIV positive?: “My husband and I were eagerly waiting for our first child. But now, it is all over. I can only cry day after day, helpless, thinking about the future. Every time I look down at my belly, my heart aches when I think about my child also having a death sentence hanging over his head like my husband and I.” Silently gnawing at the pain alone, not daring to share it with anyone, including both sides of the family. She accepted the truth and the only thing she clung to to try to survive was to go get medicine to prevent infection to her child, hoping that the child would be born healthy.

Thanks to that last ray of hope, she overcame the most terrible days of her life. When she was eight months pregnant, her husband had a seizure, collapsed and had to be transferred to Hanoi for treatment. Her belly was bulging, but she still went to take care of her husband at the Central Tuberculosis Hospital. She loved her child, but seeing her husband in pain, she could not bear to leave him. Her hope and anxious wait for the birth of her first child came true in sorrow when she gave birth alone: ​​"After giving birth, I was so tired that I fell asleep. When I woke up, it was around midnight, it was raining and cold outside! It was December"... After giving birth, the doctor advised against breastfeeding, because breast milk contained viruses that could be transmitted to the baby. She loved her child, but for the safety of her child, she gritted her teeth and endured.

After being discharged from the hospital, she took him home for treatment so that he could be close to his wife and children: “In the house, there was only me and the child, I lay between the two of us. When the child cried, I turned to comfort him. When the child fell asleep, I massaged him. It went on like that all night long.” Tet 2010 was the first Tet after she got married and also the saddest Tet in her life. Looking at the couples taking their children to wish them a happy new year, she tearfully said to her husband: “I only wish, just once, to be able to go with you and the child to wish their relatives and friends a happy new year.” But even that small, ordinary wish never came true because just a short time after Tet, her husband left them forever.

Her completely healthy and normal daughter was her consolation and great hope to overcome all the storms and bitterness. She applied for a job as a worker in a garment company in Do Luong, taking the job as a source of joy and extra money to buy milk for her child. Every month, she went to get medicine. The joy in work, the hope for the future of her little daughter, living in the love of her biological parents gave her more motivation to move on. In 2012, when the Vietnamese Family Newspaper organized the writing contest "Family Memories", she boldly participated and won first prize with the work "Returning Smile". She wrote "Returning Smile" to express her feelings, as a way for her to share with people in the same situation the message "Be happy, be optimistic to overcome the pain. The smile will return". In addition, she also participated in online quizzes of the Communist Party Magazine, Dai Doan Ket Newspaper, and learned about history...
Talking to her, I was very tactful so as not to touch on the deep pain that she had tried to suppress and forget. She eagerly told me about her future plans. She would join the peer club to help people in the same situation; she would join the “Song Lam Xanh” club to share, to be empowered and to see that there are many meaningful things in this life...

I would like to borrow the last lines from her work “The Smile Returns” to end this article: “Two years have passed, I am happy and back to work. After so much hurt and pain, I have become a strong, resilient woman. My daughter tested negative for HIV. The smile has returned. Ending the days of suffering, I am optimistic, believing in the future ahead...”

Thanh Phuc