The pain of "white death"

(Baonghean) - “This year I am over 80 years old, my legs are no longer steady, I have to use a cane to walk along the roads in the central area of ​​Que Phong district. Every day, I go to markets, shops, and families to beg for money and rice. I used to have a property, but my children were addicted so our assets gradually disappeared... My family fell into poverty, I became a beggar, maintaining my life by relying on people's pity...”.

I am Tran Van S, born and raised in a coastal countryside. At that time, people in my hometown only knew how to make salt and fish near the shore. Since the 60s of the last century, my wife and I went to the border district of Que Phong to reclaim land and develop the economy. From a place with "narrow land and a large population", coming here with vast hills and fertile land, my wife and I decided to join hands to build a life in the new land. Three children (2 boys, 1 girl) were born in difficult, hard days but full of love, the family home was always filled with laughter. We cleared each hillside full of cogon grass, felled forest trees to make land to grow corn, sugarcane and cassava. Then we blocked streams, built dams, reclaimed rice fields to grow rice. Not to mention the difficulties, hardships, and fatigue; it is impossible to calculate how much effort and sweat was poured into the cornfields and rice fields. The land did not fail the efforts and hearts of the hard-working, diligent people. The bumper crops, lush corn fields, and sweet sugarcane fields are the fruits we deserve. The years of hardship and difficulty have passed, and happiness has multiplied as the children have grown up, become good and obedient, actively helping their parents with business and developing the family economy…

But then, in life, no one can predict the unexpected. The efforts of several decades, almost the entire life of my wife and I, were suddenly destroyed. Around the year 2000, the drug whirlwind covered almost all the villages, making many families bankrupt, sowing the seeds of unhappiness and suffering for countless people. Rich families suddenly became penniless, young men became physically and mentally disabled, children who had not yet grown up followed the "white ghost". My two sons, who were hard-working and diligent, were knocked down by the evil spiral of drugs. Listening to the enticements of friends, they learned to smoke, then inject, increasingly neglecting their work. At first, I did not understand why they suddenly did not want to go to the sugarcane field to weed, did not want to go to the corn field to get corn. For some reason, they went all day and all night, skipping meals, not caring about family work. One day, the first son fell ill, foaming at the mouth, his limbs convulsing, his eyes glazed over. At that time, my wife and I still did not believe that our son was addicted to drugs. He was gentle, hard-working, and obedient to his parents. Not long after, the second son also started to show the same symptoms as his older brother. My wife and I had completely lost our faith and hope, our hearts were in turmoil. My wife fainted, and for several days she could not eat a single bite of rice, only a few spoonfuls of porridge to sustain her life.

Since then, our house no longer had laughter, our accumulated wealth went up in smoke. My family began to fall into endless debt, life was miserable. At first, they stole chickens, ducks, corn husks, rice husks to sell for money to smoke. Then they sold the TV and other things in the house. With no furniture, they even dared to take away the buffaloes and cows. Our parents scolded and cried until they had no more tears, but they didn't listen. They were no longer human, they had been led and shown the way by the "white ghost". After a while, my two sons had sores all over their bodies, slowly dying in pain. They passed away not far apart, within a few months. My wife was exhausted, bedridden ever since...

After paying for the funerals of my two sons, looking back at our family property, there was almost nothing of value left. The wooden house had to be demolished and sold to pay off debts, so the old couple had to live temporarily in a dilapidated shack... Old age and weak health, hundreds of diseases fell on me so I no longer had enough strength to plow deeply and hoe like before. I had to drag my limping legs, using a cane to go around the area to make a living... There were times when I thought about leaving this land to return to my hometown, to live in the care of relatives and neighbors. My hometown's fishing village has now developed, people have bought big boats to go out to sea to fish, the sea gives so many things to feed people. But I couldn't do it, couldn't set foot in my hometown. After being away for decades, when I returned, I only had an old body, limping legs, and not a single coin, how could I face everyone? Then people asked about my family, children, and what I had achieved. How should I answer?

Many times on the begging street, in pain and shame, I wondered that if my two children were to come back to life and see their parents become beggars, would they still smoke and inject drugs? And if I could do it all over again, to go back to the days when I first came here to make a living, how would I raise my children?...

Cong Kien(take note)