The melancholy of July…

(Baonghean) - A sudden downpour washed away the stifling heat of summer. It allowed my mother to begin preparing for July, now that the harvest was over, the straw piled high, and the freshly cooked rice in the pot still fragrant with the scent of sweat.

Even though we know tomorrow might be sunnier and the rain won't come for a long time, the fields still call out to us. Mother prepares the rice seeds, composts the ash, and tills the overgrown garden. Father mends the fence, clears the small ditch in front of the house, and resurfaces the crumbling cement in the yard. The little grandson sits on a chair, watching the bananas drying in the sun, the pile of rice crackers not yet crispy, and the basket of shrimp still needing a few more drying cycles. His parents work far away, and the little boy stays at home, following his grandmother through the rice harvest and the eggplant season. After the lychee season, it's the season of peanut candy and rice cakes. At night, listening to his grandmother's lullabies, he longs for his mother's embrace. In the dead of night, startled by a nightmare, his grandmother's arms wrap around him, comforting him until morning, a feeling of longing still present. Only his grandmother sits silently, her heart yearning for the majestic Truong Son Mountains, where his grandfather rests alongside his comrades. For decades, they've searched, but still haven't found his grave. In July, incense smoke fills every corner. On the altar sat a photograph of her husband, faded by time. Only his smile remained, so bright after decades that it pierced the hearts of those left behind. Now, sitting and watching the fluffy white clouds drift across the garden on a windy afternoon, the old woman imagined that her husband had followed her home…

Illustration: Hong Toai

Mid-July is always a time of anticipation. The rice has been sown, and now we await a new harvest. We yearn for the early morning sun to the stifling heat of the night. We wonder if, out of ten seeds sown, five will sprout? Then we think of Mother's frail figure, anxiously waiting in the fields every afternoon for the canals to bring in the water. We keep wondering why the weather is becoming increasingly harsh each day. We don't know about deforestation and tree felling elsewhere, but farmers like Mother have always been gentle with the earth and nature. Yet the fields in front of the house are parched dry by the sun. The trees in the garden are wilting, their leaves fading. Mother suddenly feels sorry for her young grandson, wondering how much harsh change his generation will have to endure. So she teaches him to plant a seedling before teaching him to climb and pick fruit. To love everything around him and cherish every living thing.

So that one July, decades from now, my grandchildren won't have to look up to the sky and utter a cry of "oh dear" in their suffering. Electricity is cut unexpectedly during this season. By day, we rely on the shade of trees; by night, we long for the gentle breeze. My little grandchild rolls around, occasionally asking, "Grandma, when will my parents come home?" I dare not promise anything because I don't know for sure what tomorrow will bring. When I understand that this struggle for survival is long and arduous, my grandchild will grow up and understand why, at times, we long to be together but cannot. There are people who spend their whole lives only knowing love through the two words "distance." The food my grandchild eats, the books they read, the clothes they wear—all are the result of the utmost care and longing. My lullabies are heavy with the richness of the soil, filled with images of storks and the swaying of rice stalks. They are vast enough to embrace my grandchild, sheltering them through their childhood. They are gentle enough to nurture, loving enough to mend the vast distances between us…

Then, in the middle of the night, the rain suddenly poured down. It pattered on the tin roof, awakening the wind. She awoke again, lighting more warm incense sticks on the altar. The war had long since ended; the living had grown old, only those who had passed away remained forever young with the land. Everyone knew that the old woman still longed for the day, not too far away, when she would be reunited with her husband, separated from her for more than half her life. Their youthful rendezvous surely remained vivid in her memory. She kept it to herself through one July after another. The Trường Sơn Mountains, where he lay buried, weren't really that far away. For a thousand trees and leaves still sang softly in her heart during sleepless nights…

Vu Thi Huyen Trang