Single mother working hard to raise children and grandchildren

(Baonghean) - Although she is 63 years old this year, every day, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Khanh in hamlet 16, My Thanh commune, Yen Thanh district has to work hard to take care of her abnormal daughter and her young grandchild.

After traveling more than 1.5km of winding dirt road, deep on the hilltop, we arrived at Mrs. Nguyen Thi Khanh’s house on a bright winter afternoon. The small house was stained with time but looked very neat and clean. However, the house was surrounded by dense trees and close to the cemetery, which made visitors a bit apprehensive.

Mrs. Khanh's ground-floor house is isolated, surrounded by trees and near the village cemetery. Photo: Anh Tuan

Mrs. Khanh was born and raised like many other girls in the village, but for some reason, "God teased her", her life and love were full of ups and downs. Mistakenly, she gave birth to a daughter, Nguyen Thi Th. (1983), but from the moment she was born, she showed unusual signs. She tried her best, from the provincial hospital to the central hospital, but all was in vain when the doctor concluded that her daughter was mentally ill from birth. Although sad and painful, with the love of a mother, she spent all her time taking care of her daughter, hoping that a miracle would come to her. But the cruelty of fate pushed her into extreme poverty. That daughter grew up being naive and foolish, running away from home everywhere, only knowing how to find her way home when hungry. In 2011, during one of her outings, she was impregnated by a "playboy" and gave birth to Nguyen V.D. (take mother's last name - PV), now I'm in first grade.

Mrs. Khanh and her grandchild. Photo: Anh Tuan

Every day, witnessing her daughter struggling in her foolish life, running away from home and running around the neighborhood, the old, skinny, hard-working mother's heart ached even more. With her old and helpless body, she could only endure, working hard day and night, hoping for a simple, ordinary thing: her grandchild would escape the fate of her and her mother. Mrs. Khanh wiped away her tears and confided: "Now I don't know where she is anymore, if I lock her up, she screams and scratches, I am helpless. Now I hope that my grandchild can get a proper education so that she can escape this miserable life, unlike her and her mother. I am now exhausted, I don't know when I can take care of her..."

Now Mrs. Khanh has turned 63 years old but this miserable person has not had a day of rest. She lives alone, isolated from her neighbors, so she only meets people on market days, holidays, Tet or when evaluating poor households, but she is also afraid. Seeing Mrs. Khanh so skinny, still struggling to take care of the vegetable garden, raise chickens and pigs every day to have enough food and clothes to feed her children and grandchildren. As for the grandchild, he does not know how to feel or think about where his life will go in the future when his grandmother is in her twilight years.

Mrs. Khanh's family vegetable garden. Photo: Anh Tuan

Sympathizing and sharing with Mrs. Khanh’s situation, neighbors often come to encourage her, buy her a bunch of vegetables and a chicken to help her save time going to the market to sell. Mr. Nguyen Vinh Hanh – Party cell secretary of Hamlet 16, My Thanh commune, said: “Mrs. Khanh is a single woman, in a particularly difficult situation, raising a child with congenital mental illness and also having to take care of a young grandchild. The local government and neighbors are also very sympathetic to her situation, so they often come to visit and encourage her. Even though she is a poor household, enjoying preferential treatment from the Party and the State, however, in Mrs. Khanh’s actual condition, her health is getting worse and worse, so she really hopes that benefactors and the community will share and help…”.

Mr. Tuan