The taste of happiness, perhaps I will not know in this life.

The past 26 years have been a series of sad days, meals mixed with tears, heart-wrenching silences, times when I just wanted to die so I wouldn't have to hear or see.

Illustration photo.

I am having to call a man father even though he does not deserve it at all. For 26 years I have endured, I cried, tried but in the end it was meaningless. I was born into a farming family, with grandparents, parents and six siblings. We were lucky to have a grandfather who loved and cared for his children and grandchildren; but the family was so unfortunate to have a man who was my father. We are having to work hard every day to pay off what people call “debts from previous lives that must be paid now”. I don’t know what kind of “debt” I owed in my previous life, but in this life I still have not paid it off.

From the moment he was born, he made his grandparents suffer a lot, got married and then made his wife suffer, and when he had children, he made his children suffer. Looking back at the past 26 years, there were days of sadness, meals with rice mixed with tears, silences that choked his heart, times when he just wanted to die so he wouldn't have to listen, see, or be silent.

My father was the youngest son and was spoiled, so he always thought he was the best, selfish, only cared about himself, did what he wanted, said what he wanted without thinking, always criticized and criticized others while never looking back at himself. A man who is 53 years old this year, but all day long he only cares about how much money his 94-year-old mother has in her pocket to take, not caring that the money is saved from the monthly subsidy from the state. As a man, a husband, a pillar of the family, from small to big things, only his wife and children shoulder the burden.

Is there any man who abandons all his farm work and housework for his wife and children to take his motorbike to work for hire, then when he comes home and gives his wife money, he says, “Where is my money, give it back to me?” He takes the money to go out drinking and then comes home and lies around, eats and plays for five more days a month, then takes his motorbike to work? This vicious cycle makes people sick. Is there any man who, in the cold and rainy weather of the last month of the year, stays at home, turns on the music really loud, covers himself with a warm blanket, and lets his wife go to work in the rice fields, lets his children go to herd buffalo, soaking wet? Is there any man who lives without knowing the two words shame, without knowing “Well, the children are grown up, I have to save face for them”, only knows how to open his mouth to curse, yell at the neighbors, destroy things, quarrel, beat his wife and children, consider his children as monsters, cursed creatures, this and that.

Is there any man who, all year round, causes trouble for his parents, wife and children, and also causes trouble for his brothers and neighbors? Is there any man whose parents, wife and children stay home and eat fish sauce and salt while he treats everyone to a meal and a drink? Is there any man who, when even a child sees his face, sighs and quickly avoids him? Is there any man who goes around bragging to people all day long that I am like this, my family is like that, while doing nothing about it? Is there any man who, when angry, takes a knife and a machete and demands to chop and slash his wife and children? Is there any man who acts like that when he is completely sober? Probably only my father.

That was the most painful thing, I would rather he was drunk or crazy so that I would have a reason to cling to, but the truth was too cruel. I grew up with that truth in the contempt of heartless children, of the world. Knowing that our family was poor and unhappy, my sisters and I learned to be independent early and never asked for or whined about anything. Thanks to our grandparents, we had a new set of clothes for school every year, a shirt for the first day of school and pants for Tet. After graduating and finding a job with a small salary, we tried our best to make a living without a word of complaint. On Tet, when we had three piles of money to help our mother with shopping, he suddenly caused trouble and destroyed everything but still had to swallow his tears to go shopping again. He had no idea that those were the sweat and tears of his children who worked day and night to get them.

We never heard a word of concern or inquiry from our father, instead there were words of jealousy about this person's talent, that person's ability, this person's high salary, that person's bringing money home to build a house. Yet he never once thought about how we had to suffer, how we felt sorry for ourselves, how we tried our best. Looking at my friends being cared for and worried about by their parents, I just told myself, "Well, my family is different." That's it! Everyone endured to get through the days and months with the hope that when they got old, they would change, but the response to that hope was an exaggeration that made it hard to breathe. I started to argue back and wanted to resist. At this time, everyone said, "After all, that's your father." Yes, I know, but why didn't anyone tell that person that I was the son, and this was my father's family? Because I was the son, born, don't I have the right to choose my own parents and have to endure?

I have been living with such a person for 26 years now. Now I have completely given up on the idea of ​​change. I may never taste the taste of “family happiness” in this life. The circumstances have made me more resilient, stronger, but hatred has also grown from there. Unconsciously, I no longer consider him as my father, no longer have any love, even pity, no longer have the minimum respect between people. Sometimes I think, it is better to be an orphan, poor than to have a father like that. Right now, I am thinking “Why doesn’t he die”, “How can someone who only knows how to make people around him suffer still live with such shamelessness”.

I still silently cry and struggle with a jumble of thoughts at night, and then when the sun rises, I hide all my resentment, sadness, and thoughts in my heart to continue living, to pretend that I am still okay, still happy. At 26 years old, the image of my father makes me not dare to think about loving someone to build a family life. People still say "A daughter lives thanks to her father's blessings", but with my father like that, what can he rely on? I am afraid that the memories I have experienced will be re-enacted again, and that I will have a wife and children who will have to endure like my mother and I do now. In life, people who do not have parents always wish to have them. And for those who have fathers like me, they also wish "it is better not to have them".

Once you have decided to have children, be responsible and loving towards them. Remember that marriage is about love and duty, children are the product of love, not the satisfaction of lust and then leaving consequences. Be worthy of the sacred calling of “parents”.

According to VNE