Teach your child to love

(Baonghean)My daughter,

Perhaps you're still awake at this hour, tomorrow you're getting married, filled with so much worry, nervousness, excitement, and anticipation! Perhaps you're caressing the hem of your pristine white wedding dress, thinking about tomorrow and the days to come, a new beginning, something that will be your own. You'll be leaving your family to build your own little family, and from now on, I won't be able to wake you up for work every morning, call to remind you to take a lunch break on time, or turn off the lights to urge you to go to bed when I see you working late into the night. Thinking about this, I suddenly feel a pang of sadness.

Perhaps you'll say I'm weak-willed. That you've grown up and I can't follow you forever. That, naturally, there will come a time when I have to let you grow up, watch you leave my embrace, suppress my feelings when you stumble, and patiently wait for you to get back up. That time has come, hasn't it, my child? I've been preparing for this day since you were born, over twenty years, and it still seems insufficient for me. Tonight, looking at my daughter with her thoughts, her dreams, but also her worries about her future plans, I know you're no longer the little girl you were yesterday. From a baby babbling in a cradle, then a toddler taking her first steps to school, then a young woman experiencing longing for the first time, you're now standing alongside me, and very soon you'll have a daughter, you'll be a mother just like your mother.

Thinking about you, about herself, about everything she's been through, and about everything you'll experience, she suddenly remembered a passage from the novel "The Thorn Birds": "A daughter is a reminder of a long-suffering pain, a younger version of herself, who will repeat all the actions she has taken, and will also cry the same tears she has cried." This doesn't mean she knows the joys and sorrows that will come in your life, but she wants to show you the path she has walked. The deep pit she fell into, the stones that pierced her heart—she wants to spare you all the pain she caused her, so that your life will only be filled with joy, or at least with only half the sorrow she experienced. Is she being too idealistic?

My child has grown up, and I can't hold you forever. Perhaps that's what you've been hoping for, like a little bird wanting to leave its nest and rule the world. I'm not sad, I only regret that my time is so short. I don't know if I've loved you enough, cherished you enough, so that you can pass that love on to your own little family in the future. There's a fable about a mother bird and her chicks. One day, their nest caught fire, and the mother bird carried her three chicks out of the flames one by one. The first two chicks said, "Later, we'll carry you all over the world," but the mother bird shook her head and said nothing. The last chick said, "Later, I'll carry my own children as you carried me," but the mother bird nodded, saying that was true love and filial piety. That's also how I want you to reciprocate my love: Love your family as I have loved you. No one, no place can teach you the pure and intense feeling of family love.

As I write these words to you, I can't stop myself from shedding tears. I have a feeling, both selfish and childish, that I'm about to lose you to a stranger. It's the natural insecurity of a parent, and also the self-satisfaction of the love I have for you, the love I believe no one in the world can give you more than my own. Please let me hold onto that pride, because I may lose everything, but I cannot lose the right to love you. And so, tomorrow, when you walk through that door and leave me, I will still smile and bless you, because I know that's what makes you happy. Love is happiness when you see the one you love happy; some say it's a "chain reaction," others say it's a noble sacrifice. My daughter, remember this: your love must make the one you love happy, just as I have loved you!

Hai Trieu

(Email from Paris)